THE ART OF WEEDING

摘要

Getting rid of books can feel uncomfortable and look bad to community members, but careful weeding is key to the health of a collection. There's an uncomfortable truth about library stacks that most librarians know but many don't like to admit: those shelves hold a lot of junk that has to make way for the new titles getting published every day. Considering the volume of mate-rial libraries deal with, and the span of time over which those titles have been acquired, it's not surprising. Pulling that chaff from the collection can be time-consuming for librarians with no dearth of other projects needing their attention. Also, weeding-remov-ing items from the collection-can seem counterintuitive. It's by and large a thank-less task as well. Patrons don't walk in saying, "Thanks for getting rid of ail of those books!" Some may even drag library staff over the coals, furious about what looks, to them, like useful books being destroyed or funds being wasted.