Weeding for Success
Course
The Need to Weed [7:51]
In this lesson, we will discuss why weeding is important for school libraries.
The CREW method began in 1976, so it has had four decades of vetting. Texas State Library staff were working with libraries across the state to improve their services and collection. Many of the libraries in Texas were begun with collections of donated materials that had been given to volunteer run libraries. While building these collections, as often happens, the emphasis was more on quantity rather than quality and the goal was to fill the shelves so that the library could gain state accreditation. At the same time in the '70s public and school libraries were beginning to add non-print materials to their collections and for once federal funds were flowing to add materials.
As new books and other items were added, old stuff needed to be withdrawn to make room, so there was a real need to help library staff learn to weed and the CREW method was developed. Since then the CREW manual has been revised twice, most recently in 2008 and in 2012 an e-book addendum was added. The manual is primarily intended for school and medium-size libraries, but the advice and guidance is also very relevant to school libraries and the process encourages you to adapt the formulas to meet your own needs so they can easily be used in any library.
The CREW manual was revised in 2008 and in 2012 an e-book addendum was added. The manual is primarily intended for small and medium-size libraries, but the advice and guidance is also very relevant to school libraries and the process encourages you to adapt the formulas to meet your needs so they can easily be used in any library. CREW stands for Continuous Review Evaluation and Weeding and this emphasized the fact that weeding is a major part of the collection development process.
Our cycle of service in libraries as it related to the collection begins with a selection of materials. We buy or receive donations of items. Those items are added to the collection through cataloguing and processing and then they enter into circulation to be used. At some point each item in the collection should be evaluated to determine its ongoing usefulness. If it is no longer useful for any of several reasons it is withdrawn and disposed of, usually by discarding the item, but we'll look at other options in a later segment.
Many of us work in libraries because we love books and reading and we want to share those resources with our patrons. We love adding to the collection, we detest losing a book. We actually take the loss of a book personally, but by doing that we're putting the emphasis on the physical entity. We need to remember that collections should be healthy living organisms and the content is as important as the item. A major tenant of librarianship based on Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science is the books are for use by the patron. Another that we'll highlight several times in this course is librarians should save the time of the reader. Ranganathan, an Indian librarian mathematician, proposed his laws in the 1930s long before there were e-books and the Internet, but we can easily substitute learner, scholar, patron or user for reader. And substitute media or electronic resources for the word 'book.'
Collections, like other organisms, grow, deteriorate, age, need to be repaired and have parts that face the end of their useful life. We add new materials and must withdraw outdated items. A poorly maintained collection won't support your library's mission statement and will negatively impact your image, credibility and value.
There are many reasons librarians don't weed, but let's look at a few. Often the first one is, "I don't have time." Yes, weeding takes time, but anything worth doing does. None of us has enough time for all of the things we need to do in our day, but if you have time to select new books, you have time to weed. Making weeding part of your routine and breaking it down into smaller doses helps resolve the time issue and makes weeding a habit. It's easy to say, "I can't weed because I need to have enough volumes to meet standards." And I'm proud of having a really large collection. We need to remember that quality counts more than quantity. Keeping dated and worn material is a disservice to your students and patrons. If you have gaps in the collection and need more materials to meet standards, nothing shows that better than empty shelves. Administrators don't understand that those full shelves are filled with outdated junk that you're keeping just in case somebody needs it. Really, it is much fair to students and patrons if we say we don't have a book on that subject than to offer them something that is outdated or in really poor condition. "But if I throw something out, I just know somebody will ask for it next week, so therefore I'm not going to weed." It's highly unlikely. The past is a really good predictor of the future. If the item hasn't been used in the past year, it's pretty unlikely that it will be used in the next year. There are exceptions, of course, for items that are cyclical in their topics like the Winter Olympics. You must know your collection and how is it used. Are there courses that are only taught every other year? If not, those items that are not being used can be weeded out of the collection.
One of my favorite excuses for not weeding is, "This is an old book. It might be rare or valuable and even if it's not rare, I might not be able to replace it with something newer." The reality is that very few old books are rare and valuable and books culled from library collections are rarely worth anything to collectors because they are marked up with property stamps and classification labels, plus they often show a lot of wear and tear. If you really think that book is valuable but it's no longer useful to your collection, see if you can sell it and use the funds to buy new stuff. Well, it's true that you might not be able to replace the specific book being withdrawn with the same book. Classics can be replaced with newer copies that have updated jackets and outdated non-fiction books that were on topic still of interest can be replaced with newer up-to-date books on the same topic.
Few collections really need an old book on macramé or disco dancing and your books on planets that were published before 2008 need to be updated to eliminate poor Pluto from the discussion. It's scary to think that a child might actually do their planet mobile and show nine planets.
It's easy to think that the collection weeds itself because we lose books all the time. People don't return them. It's nice to think that you don't need to weed because you have a high rate of theft or loss, but remember that the books that are lost or stolen are often the books that are still useful and are popular. If you used this method to week then your collection is left with a lot of books that weren't even worth stealing. And finally, "I'm afraid I'll make a mistake and throw out something I should've kept." Let me tell you, we've all done it, but don't let fear hold you back. Yes, you may make a mistake but keeping everything is a bigger mistake. Also there are ways for you to get help if you're really uncertain. We'll discuss some of those in a later segment.
This lesson positions weeding as a requisite step in the collection development process. Jeannette Larson points to the reader's (or patron's, student's, or user's) needs in explaining why weeding books is essential. As she describes, failing to weed is a disservice to reading and information needs. Larson counters reasons that librarians may have for hesitating to weed with affirmations as to why weeding is worth the time and effort. Though designed mostly for small and medium-sized libraries, the CREW method (an acronym for Continuous Evaluation Review and Weeding) for weeding is useful for school library settings.
To build a foundation for your learning in this workshop, download and skim CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries (link in Resources below). It's an in-depth and lengthy document at 107 pages; some possible areas of focus are these sections:
- The Cycle of Service (with diagram) – p. 12–13
- The Benefits of Weeding – p. 15–16
- CREWING Children's Materials – p. 33–36
- CREW Guidelines for the Children's Collection – p. 81–82
As you proceed in the workshop, refer to this manual for additional detail on workshop topics.
Larson, Jeanette. CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries. Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 2012. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ld/pubs/crew/
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Weeding for Success: Review CREW." School Library Connection, September 2017, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1964549?learningModuleId=1964556&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2128216
Additional Resources
About the Author
Jeanette Larson is a semi-retired librarian and adjunct professor at Texas Woman's University. She earned her MLS from the University of Southern California. Larson is the author of several books for librarians, including CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries, Children's Services Today: A Practical Guide for Librarians, The Public Library Policy Writer, and El día de los niños/El día de los libros: Building a Culture of Literacy in Your Community through Día, as well as a book for children, Hummingbirds: Facts and Folklore from the Americas.
Known as a ruthless weeder, Larson recently culled her personal library prior to moving to a smaller home in Rockport, TX.
MLA Citation
Larson, Jeanette. "Weeding for Success. The Need to Weed [7:51]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, September 2015, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1964549?learningModuleId=1964556&topicCenterId=2247902.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1964549?learningModuleId=1964556&topicCenterId=2247902
Entry ID: 1964549