WEEDING!!!!

I had a whole other post planned for today, but this morning there has been a very active, useful, and informative discussion by a bunch of us on the importance of weeding over on Twitter.

What I love about this discussion is that it is looking at the issue the right way.  Too often talk of weeding does not get beyond the bias that it involves books being "trashed." First of all that is untrue. No library simply throws books away. They are conscious recycled-- both figuratively [by finding the books a new home] or literally.

And weeding is about more than removing books, it is about shaping our collections to represent our communities. Weeding involves removing books, but it also includes replacing those removed books with more responsive titles.

Look, I could go on and on, but I am writing this post because I know I have a bunch of readers who are not on Twitter. So, I have been actively retweeting much of the conversation so that you can read it on the widget in the right gutter of the blog. Also, click here to read 1 librarian's longer discussion of weeding on Twitter today. [You don't nee an account to read it].

You can also click here for all of my posts on weeding.  I do not have a tag for weeding because it is a part of collection development (for which I do have a tag), and weeding is not productive without being connected to a larger CD plan. So use that link to see all posts on collection development.

I would also like to specifically point out my post on Rebecca Vnuk's brand new book on weeding. I really feel like it is a must buy for all public libraries.

And finally, here is a link to Rebecca's recent presentation on Weeding at RAILS HQ.