If reference sources are not being used in your library, they are just taking up space that could be repurposed. There is no magic number for how many items you should keep—in fact, the current trend we’re seeing is that many libraries aren’t keeping anything in reference sections anymore, and are simply moving titles into the general circulating collection. I encourage most small and medium public libraries to see if that is something that would work. It’s useful in two ways: it gets those items into the hands of patrons who might actually use them, and it gives you something you can track, so you can see if the items really are (or are not) being used. If you have a title you are questioning, it makes a world of difference to be able to prove that something is or isn’t being used. In a library where I worked, we decided to drop our reference shelving down about 80 percent. After weeding for condition and age, we moved the bulk of the “good” leftovers into the circulating collection. This freed up our space and then put those items either into the hands of our patrons . . . or on the next weeding report.
Reference can be tricky, since there is usually not a usage report available for reference items. As noted elsewhere in this book, attempts can also be made to track some reference usage, for example, by asking patrons to tick a piece of paper attached to the front of the book; or asking patrons to not re-shelve reference items. At the end of the day, a shelver can make note of items that have been used and left out.
At the very least, most libraries should feel free to discard older editions of standing reference titles. General encyclopedia sets and subject encyclopedias, if still purchased, do not need to be kept once a new edition is acquired. Almanacs, which used to be kept for ages, can also be discarded when the new version comes out. In this digital age, it is rare to have patrons who are using them for historic research.
Carol Singer’s Fundamentals of Managing Reference Collections (see “Suggested Reading”) offers an excellent template for a Reference Collection Development Policy, which is freely available online. www.alaeditions.org/web-extra-fundamentals-managing-reference-collections.
Weeding audiobooks, DVDs, CDs, or any other non-book format is really not much different from weeding your print collection. Previous chapters can tell you what you really need to know—that you need to weed based on condition, usage, and what your goals are.
But there are a few considerations to keep in mind when looking at a media collection. Are you weeding because you have run out of space (a common problem in media collections, especially for audiobooks)? Then your main factor should be circulation. Choose a last-circulated date (two years is a good starting point for most media), and pull from there.
Who is your audience? Don’t be so quick to pull your audios on cassette (I know, I know) if they are still in use—according to the New York Times, the last car to come equipped with a tape deck was manufactured in 2010. That’s not too terribly long ago. That said, if the collection is not getting much use, it may be time to ditch them wholesale. Tapes are fragile, and it’s quite likely that the bulk of your collection is in poor condition.
Even though most millennials or digital natives aren’t even remotely interested in CDs, the majority of your audiobook patrons may still want them. Get to know who is using the collection, and what devices they use, before you make any decision to weed.
Downloadables are certainly the latest technology, but weeding a physical copy simply because the library has access to a digital one is not always appropriate.
As noted above, you can follow the basic weeding guidelines for your audiobooks, such as weeding outdated nonfiction topics and keeping series fiction intact. It may seem that there would not be any reason to keep a title in audio that you wouldn’t keep in print—but there is an exception. The audio format has one extra layer that print does not—the narrator. Many listeners seek out the well-known readers (think Barbara Rosenblatt, George Guidall, and Jim Dale) and will listen to whatever they read, no matter the author or subject. Keep that in mind when weeding.
Look to your collection development plan for guidance on how to weed your DVD and CD collections. Are you maintaining a collection of popular materials exclusively? Are you collecting nonfiction films or documentaries to supplement your print materials? Weeding decisions should be made based on use, popularity, and wear, and you should pull television and feature film DVDs that have not circulated at least once during the past year. It’s a safe bet that there is either something wrong with the disc or patrons have lost interest in the title. Space is the other factor here. If you have space, it’s not hard to hang on to the slim cases of DVDs and CDs a bit longer.
VHS is a rapidly disappearing format, and most libraries should be clearing out this collection if it still exists. The format is simply too fragile and the mode of playback too inaccessible at this point.
It’s tempting to sit back and say, “Well, the fragility of these formats means the collections are self-weeding!” Don’t make that mistake. Use the same careful consideration you would use for your print collections, and let the “good stuff” in your media collections shine.
The Seattle Public Library has internal weeding guidelines for their CD collection, which are reprinted here with permission.
In most public libraries, periodical subscriptions subsist of general interest titles meant for casual browsing and local interest titles. Most libraries recognize the transitory nature of paper periodicals, and no longer attempt to keep a full run of every magazine. A browsing collection can be difficult to assess, since most of the issues are read in-house and not checked out as frequently as other materials. But with budgets diminishing, cuts often need to be made, and care should be taken to keep subscriptions that get actual use. A simple way of tracking periodical usage is to attach a slip to the front cover of magazines, saying something along the lines of “DO YOU READ THIS MAGAZINE? We are currently conducting a usage survey for our magazine collection. If you enjoy reading this magazine in the library, please take a moment to make a check mark here. You can also always stop at the desk and let us know your preferences!”
Even when it is obvious which periodicals get regular use, it can be hard to decide how long of a run to keep. This decision can be purely based on space, but keep in mind that most general interest magazines are rarely used three to five years after publication date. Is it worth it to store them? It can also be helpful to check your holdings against what is available full-text in your library’s databases.
In your collection development plan, address these four key points:
1. how to track patron usage and interest
2. how to display current issues
3. how long to keep back issues
4. where back issues will be stored and how patrons will access them
Seattle Public Library Weeding Guidelines for CDs
Weeding CDs
The goal for the system-wide CD collection is to provide broad coverage to serve our patrons who place holds and our patrons who browse. Due to limited space, individual branches are unable to provide deep CD collections that can respond to every request. Space for these collections is limited, so ongoing weeding is necessary for a collection to fit in its designated area. As this collection is also heavily used and subject to damage that can negatively affect the patron’s enjoyment, worn and damaged materials need to be discarded to make room for new CDs arriving on a continual basis.
Weed for Condition
As with all collections, relying on Dusty Shelf reports for collection maintenance activity yields mixed results. The most practical way to proceed is to weed on the basis of condition. Systematically going through every disc and checking for scratches is the only sure way of capturing items that are not fit for circulation. Using a Dusty Shelf report slows this process down and misses items that should be withdrawn but are skipped because they are not on the report.
Weed for Age
Age is a secondary technique that can be used to identify “midlist” titles that were popular on release but have aged-out. Again, a Dusty Shelf report is not essential for identifying items in this category. Look for the physical barcode and label changes to quickly identify older items. For example, if you find any CDs with a green line above the barcode, those items were in your collection in 2003. Those may be excellent candidates to send to FOL, if you need to make space for newer materials. Anything with a barcode affixed to the back of a jewel case dates from Old Central. Any barcode (no matter where affixed) that begins with an alpha character (usually an A) is at least 10 years old. Publication dates are usually included on the CD itself or on the backside of the container or insert (usually in small print) but staff should understand that classic titles reissued (Michael Jackson or the Beatles as examples) would be of persistent interest, the press date notwithstanding. Packaging and barcode placement are very good guides: anything packaged in the black polyboxes or with the x-range film RFID tag affixed to the disc itself are the most recent additions to the collection.
Weed for Coverage
Think also about weeding for coverage. Maybe the local collection is too heavy on holiday music or there are too many folk/roots titles, etc. Staff could trim these sections down to a more usable representative sampling.
E-books and databases do need to be weeded, in the sense that they should not be left in place simply because they aren’t taking up actual space. After all, patrons still have to search through outdated information to drill down to the “good stuff” if you just keep adding e-book titles and not removing any. Libraries should strive to have their electronic collections meet the same standards as the print collections. The process of making weeding decisions remains much the same for e-book copies as it does for print copies: evaluate the number of times the book was accessed, searched, or downloaded, as well as when the item was purchased (using records generated from the library catalog or the vendor).
In general, it’s probably too soon to start looking at e-books as a replacement for print collections. E-books are a great way to supplement a print collection but I wouldn’t actually let that influence my print purchasing, at least for now. There are still the same circulation issues as there are with print (one item, one checkout), but there are fewer people able to utilize the material—not everyone has an e-reader or is interested in e-books—so we’re pretty far from the tipping point. However, it’s a good idea to weed the e-book collection in conjunction with physical books. It may be useful to keep an e-book version of a classic or a formerly popular fiction title while weeding the physical copies, which will free shelf space for new titles.
In 2012, the CREW Manual added an addendum on e-books (www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/ld/pubs/crew/crewebooksaddendum12.pdf). There is good advice there, including a lengthy discussion on how to think about weeding as part of overall ecollection development.
The issue is that, removing the links to items—or the items themselves—is not usually an easy process. Libraries often cannot do this themselves, and must ask vendors to do the actual removal—if they will. It becomes even harder when working in a consortium, which many libraries do for electronic collections. However, it may be possible to suppress records in your ILS, which can be helpful.
As budgets shrink, many libraries are realizing they need to take a close look at their databases. This can be an easy choice: patron use dictates keeping or discontinuing a database. A subscription database that does not show substantial use (considering the cost of the subscription) over a time period of a year should be removed or replaced. All database vendors should be capable of providing a library with usage statistics, although this can be tricky—one vendor may track number of clicks, another tracks time spent within the product, and yet another tracks the number of searches. Library staff should determine what statistic tells the best story of usage, and use that as a starting point. Consideration should also be tipped toward the coverage the product offers versus coverage available in print or elsewhere.