Weeding books

Our library is in need of some serious weeding. I was wondering what criteria you all used/would use in selecting books other than "it's falling apart."

For example, what of parenting books published in the '80s? (The kids brought up on that advice are raising their own kids!) Another example would be a good book with a dated cover (ladies with big hair and the like). What are your thoughts?

How often a book is checked out, and (presumably) read by someone would probably be my first weeding criteria. If the book is popular, I would not consider removing it from circulation no matter how dated the cover or the advice, if it is in decent condition.

On the other hand, a book just sitting there, taking up shelf space that has not been checked out for some amount of time should be one of the first to go. The chosen interval of time after which a book gets weeded from the library... now that is something only someone familiar with the collection should decide.

1dragones: The thing is we have a large number of "unpopular" books which if weeded would leave us with a very little library (on second thought, maybe then I could retire!)

misskate - I agree with your original post. I'm sure the lack of being checked out is a given when you are talking about parenting books from the 80s. If library patrons see outdated books on your shelves it may cause them to assume the entire library is outdated.

So many unpopular books might be an indication that very little of the current inventory is found to be useful by your patrons... so take worn out, vandalized (if any), out-dated, and a percentage of the least popular books (maybe 10%, maybe 15%) depending on how much weeding you want to do. If new books are regularly added to the inventory, you might want to do the weeding on an annual or some other suitable incremental basis, as new books arrive to take the place of older and/or unpopular books. When your patrons see new materials available, that might also generate more interest in the remaining inventory.

This obviously will require some "judgmentalism" (or "censorship?"), but I'd suggest that a team of members and pastoral leaders might review the contents of the library. There might be some obvious candidates for weeding, like the parenting books you mention--especially if the information provided therein no longer seems relevant or appropriate. If there has not been a standard for what books to include in the library over the years (I think there is another thread that discusses this), there could/should be some weeding to cull those books not really in accordance with your church's ministry/mission.

Note that this weeding process is not focused first of all on the "popularity" or "unpopularity" of the books. Obviously, as 1dragones notes, any books that are still being checked out should be kept. However, there may be some classics and reference books that will never be used often but that would still be valuable to include on the church library shelves. There may be other books that don't have a lot of shelf appeal (plain old covers or the dated dust jackets you mention) but that may be still relevant and important to promote.

By having a small group of people go through the entire catalog (sounds like this wouldn't be a large task), it is very possible that some plain jane pearls will be found that someone on your committee could review in a church bulletin or newsletter. Perhaps you could set up a small display near the sanctuary entrance to highlight some of these forgotten treasures as well.

Finally, and you may have already done this, do consider where and how your books are displayed. Is the library in an easily accessible location for "casual browsers"? Do you already have some way to highlight available books to pique the interest of members? I am on the building committee for our congregation, so we have been visiting a large number of churches of various sizes, denominations, and age of structure. Libraries are becoming less popular among many congregations, but those that have actively used collections seem to have a few things in common: a readily accessible area; specific guidelines on books that will be included (or not); some process for weeding unused/unusable materials; and ongoing communication of what is available in the collection.

Some of these most successful "libraries" are actually quite small, but what they have is being used and shared regularly. It's not the size of the collection but how well it is serving your members and visitors--and pastoral staff as well--that should be the most important criteria.

(Former synagogue librarian here.) I would also suggest writing a formal collection development policy, including a profile of your congregation and different categories of books that would serve your patrons, plus guidelines on how often/what/how to weed, including what to do with weeded books. Having a formal policy will help guide your decisions and give you backup when others have questions about why you do what you do. I would also suggest that you have as little outside participation as possible; non-librarians often have a limited understanding of what building a successful library collection entails.

Bostonbibliophile--your post made me chuckle. "What building a successful library collection entails" You mean it isn't putting in the 20-year-old donations that no one wanted to throw out because they have Uncle Henry's name on the flyleaf????

Seriously, though, a policy helps. It gives you a backup when someone donates some old best sellers and RIGHT IN YOUR POLICY it says that the library only has materials specifically related to the Christian or Jewish religions. Dates help also, as do condition of materials.

It also helps guide the next person who takes over the church library, who may or may not see the library as YOU see it.

>Bostonbibliophile--your post made me chuckle. "What building a successful library collection entails" You mean it isn't putting in the 20-year-old donations that no one wanted to throw out because they have Uncle Henry's name on the flyleaf????

Despite what every volunteer who washes up over your threshhold will tell you, no :-)

Wow, thanks everyone for your input!
hsl2000, our library allows for browsing. A few years ago when we had fewer books and more space, the shelves at chest-level were used for display, in addition to the dedicated display area. Now we have just the dedicated area. Every now and then we'll do a bulletin insert, especially for kids' books—which see more circulation than those for adults.
bostonbibliophile & BeulahChurch , a formal policy is a great idea! I also totally agree with your sentiments on non-librarians :)

I'm just catching up on your question now. One other thing to consider is historical or rare books and your church archives. We have some older books that rarely get checked out, but they are important to our church and demonimation and are not easy to replace, so we keep them. Also, we have some books over 100 years old that we keep in a locked case in the library, and allow people to check out these books by arrangement.

The collection policy is not only good for helping you decide what to weed, but it helps us a lot explain to gifters why we may not add their gift to the collection. Our unwanted gifts go to the youth's annual booksale, so we are able to tell people that their gift will be used to benefit the church one way or another.

Good luck--weeding is like the Golden Gate Bridge--once you are all the way through, it's time to start again.

Putting them on this librarything is helping me evaluate where my "wish list" needs to be. I'm noticing we have too many dated biographies. Some need to be kept for historical purposes, but some, the people are not going to be familiar with. I'm contemplating how to refresh that section.
Since we are linked to Amazon, I'm considering buying newer used editions of some older classics to improve circulation. As I enter books here, I'm making piles of potential discards and plan to ask a second opinion from those on the library committee before making the final decision. In this way, it is the committee's deductions, according to current library goals, not just my own preference.

Great comments throughout...I just started as the volunteer Librarian here this week and received an e-mail today from a member of the Library Committee wanting to weed with me so we can discuss the books (so far I set aside 2 shelves worth; really need to weed at least one bookcase worth but I don't want to scare her into a heart attack)...I'm a recovering reluctant weeder myself and I'm concerned about the amount of time, energy, and discussion this will take.

We have one wall of bookshelves (5 or 6 tall bookcases) for all our adult books; shelves jam-packed; many new donations awaiting shelf space; my to-do list goes on and on. I'm having fun adding our fiction to our new LibraryThing account, but I realize I need to focus (and get my committee--two other people) on board with weeding out the outdated {yes, I believe 80's general non-fiction is outdated} and duplicate materials, particularly the non-fiction. I'm happy that most of my general signage is complete and I've started up this LibraryThing account.

Thanks for the reminders about overall appeal of the collections, BoiseCOC, where lots of outdated materials can lead people to assume everything is outdated. I'm going to try to emphasize this point, and the fact that the library here has only been used by a handful of people the last few years, along with the piles of nice donations awaiting shelf space to try to sway my committee into jumping on board the weeding train.

We have just started weeding the non-fiction in our library and are dealing with this, too. In general, if a book hasn't seen much traffic and looks really outdated, we will pull it. If we can't imagine anyone who routinely comes in picking it up, we pull it. We'd rather create space and add more up-to-date books.

What to do with all those books you pulled out? We have a sale and the money goes to the library! We do this with donations which we don't want, too. Anything left after the sale goes to the Gospel Mission.

Does anyone use the CREW method or MUSTIE method of weeding? Any success?

Am also hesitant to let stinky/moldy books to be smelled by "outsiders." Their frequent response it to tell me that is smelled like an old book. The stink gives me a headache! Mold...?

I was once trying to set up a database for a small church library, and had to weed a lot of books that were not in line with our theology. I mentioned to the priest that I was throwing books away, and he was rather upset until I asked if he really thought the church needed several books by _________. He was then even more upset that the books had been there at all, and gave me a free hand to discard anything 'of that sort'.

Moldy books have been worthy of inclusion by nonlibrarians simply because they smell like an old book.

Right-o. Old books--bibles? Chuckles. But really better conditions, versions are needed. This is where weeding, selection policy is essential.
Also, guidelines can be modified. Think we will not accept books easily available for other sources,public library, for example. This policy will have to be flexible.

Sort of feeling your pain, Our church librsry was blessed with an extrodinarly large gift that allowed us to relocate to space on the main floor. We had a 5000 piece collection but alas our new space was a bit smaller so we had to do a very intensive weeding. We pulled all books that were over 20 years old and further weeded those that had not been checked out in the last 20 years. It literally cut our colletion in half. It was hard to do because there was alot of good argument of why some books should stay. Thankfully I am also blessed with a few librarians on my board who were more than happy to help. All the purged books went up for sale and those that were left over are being given to another church librarian and someone who is starting a used book store. The money we made from the sale will help purchase new books. We are also in the process of a collection development policy as well. While we are getting settled inot our new space we also joined the Free LIttle LIbrary which is located outside our church and funnel some of our purged books though that.

>1 misskate: I managed a small Lutheran church library in Sun City, AZ. I started updating our church library in Jan 2021 and the books that I got rid of were: WW II books, books about battles and other wars, books about politicians, and all paperbacks (they look trashy). Plus books that were over 50 years old or printed in other languages such as German were removed. I only keep one copy and copies of the same book have been removed. I only have 54 shelves in my library. I removed all VHS and cassette tapes, no one has the machines anymore.

I ran our church library for a while, and the priest was quite upset when I said I was getting rid of books until I mentioned the names of some of the authors I was getting rid of. Then he quickly said that I obviously knew what I was doing.