Just Wondering...Weeding in the Time of COVID

Image by Katherine Ab from Pixabay

This post by Manitowoc (WI) Public Library Youth Librarian and YSS Board Member Susie Menk explores questions about how we weed during a pandemic. And she's wondering....what do you think? 

So it seems that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as far as COVID-19 goes.  Maybe.  We hope so anyway.  BUT the big question remains, what do we do now?  What do we do with all those books that did not move off our shelves when we were either closed or only offering curbside pick-up?  How do we determine what books to keep and what to weed after this crazy year?

My thoughts were jumbled when I was able to begin my normal weeding routine.  My library has a schedule we try to follow.  This schedule ensures that the whole collection goes through the weeding process on a regular basis and keeps the weeding from turning into a huge task.  We weed small sections at a time, working our way through the collection so that by the end of the year we have covered the entire collection.  I am fortunate to have co-workers who help with weeding so we can split up the collection into manageable amounts.  I focus on non-fiction, foreign language, holiday and audiobooks.  My colleagues share the fiction, our picture book collection, easy readers, and the rest of the audio visual collection.  This division of duties helps us not become overwhelmed with weeding.  

Now that the library is open again and we have patrons visiting us regularly, we need to get back to our weeding schedule.  Right? What? Wait a minute.  In my library, the purchasing part of collection development has continued throughout this pandemic year.  That means we have continued to add books to our collection, which is great.  In a normal year, we would be discarding books and adding books in a pretty even fashion.  The goal is to keep our collection to roughly the same size.  Library space is limited and we can’t go adding books and never getting rid of some.  We would run out of shelves to put them on!

What to do now? How can I in good conscious weed books that most patrons haven’t even had an opportunity to look at yet?  How can I determine if a book is worth keeping when it has good circulation numbers before COVID-19? 

My rule of thumb right now, is if the book was circulating well pre-pandemic, I will most likely hang onto it.  If the previous circulation was poor, I will still get rid of it.  Basically, I am not counting circulation stats for 2020.  There was just too much going on to be fair to the book.  If the book was new in 2020, I will give it longer than normal time to circulate.  However, I still have to be aware of shelf space, so I might check on my newer books more often than I normally would.  Maybe I’ll do a check every few months instead of only once or twice a year. 

2020 was a year of unusual activities and I think we need to be aware of that and adjust our weeding to compensate for that. 

What about you?  Are you making exceptions to weeding procedures or is it just business as usual?  What are you using for a rule of thumb to guide your weeding?  I’d love to hear what you’re doing!