Weeding

• January 28, 2009 (3:40 - 4:30 pm) - I assisted the elementary media specialist with weeding the 600 section of the library (technology). The process of weeding is tedious, especially for a media specialist that teaches a class all day! However, it is an interesting process because it gives a lot of insight as to what is in the library collection as well as to what is missing from the library collection.

1. Media specialist showed me a special media special portal that allows media specialist to post and read updated policies and happenings of the school libraries.
2. Media specialist printed out an updated weeding policy sheet entitled Guidelines for weeding library materials. The sheet provided a definition of weeding, what weeding is not, and seven general guidelines for weeding.
3. In discussion with the media specialist, I found out that most of our collection has an average copyright date of 1995!!!!! Therefore, we weedeed based on guideline #3: timeliness.
4. Media specialist informed me that we were not only looking for dates but also looking at format, condition, curriculum, and focus. Therefore, not all of the older books would be discarded. For example, we kept an older book on African American Inventors because there was no other book like it in the media center.
5. When books were chosen to take off the shelves, the library pocket and bar codes were removed. Then, the school name was crossed out in the entire book and the word "discard" was written in the front of the book. The books were then left on the table and will be offered to students and teachers. (In previous years, books would be boxed and shipped to a central warehouse but district does not want them this year)
6. After weeding, the media specialist showed me how to remove books from the database using Library Solutions, a web-based system. The school has been using this system for three school terms.