Throw-It Thursday - What's in a Series?

Ashley Borman, Technical Services Librarian at the Clintonville (WI) Public Library is back with her monthly column and has some great advice on making sure your collections are updated.

Are you always asking yourself how to weed series? Do you wait until it is no longer popular and then get rid of the whole set, even if a few of them still circ? Are you afraid to get rid of even one book in a series because you think someone will come in wanting that one book in the series? NEWSFLASH-It will happen whether you try to prevent it or not. Things get damaged or lost or go missing all the time, and we can’t catch ever book that falls through the cracks. We are not perfect (even if we are superheroes).

In several weeding seminars I have attended, they talked about the importance of weeding series (and popular authors). It seems like each person has their own ideas of the best way to do this. And that’s okay. BUT...you can’t let series take over your entire collection. It is okay to weed part of a series and leave the other books that still go out. Most of us are part of a library system and can request books from other libraries. And those of us that aren’t still have the option of inter-library loaning through WISCAT (or whatever system your state might have if you have stumbled across this from somewhere else).

  

         These crusty series titles were still in our collection, gathering dust. Time to say buh-bye!

I am going to share the two most popular ways of weeding series. First is, if there are books in a series that don’t circulate, keep the first one or two and most recent couple of books in the series. Also keep the books that still circulate. Anything else can get weeded. If you want, you can check if other libraries in your system still have copies of the ones you are weeding, to make sure patrons can still get them in a timelier manner than if you had to go outside of your system to get the items. Be careful with this method though...you don’t want to keep your shelves full of items no one wants and not have room for new materials.

The other method (and my personal choice) is to be vigorous and weed everything that doesn’t circ, regardless of whether it is the first book in the series. If someone wants to start a series, you can still get the first book from another library. Yes, they may have to wait a day or two, but our shelf space is limited! We need to make room for all of the new stuff we get every month.

I hope this helps you with any reservations you have about weeding series. Remember, if it’s not being used, it’s not worth the shelf space. Throw it in the discard pile!