Throw It Thursday - New Old Books

[Note: Blog subscribers who subscribed prior to August, 1 2021: Please take a moment to re-subscribe to our blog for continued access. Our old subscriber service is shutting down soon and we don't want you to lose a day of posts. Simply go to our blog and enter your email in the subscription box on the right side. Thanks!]

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.

When you are weeding, do you ever think, “I really should be looking at some of our newer items too?” The answer is most often, no. But sometimes this can lead to materials that are outdated almost as soon as they come out staying on the shelves.

Case in point:

I found this newer outdated book on my latest shelf-reading excursion. This is no longer a possibility, it has already in the past and this book no longer has much relevance to our collection. Why are we keeping this on the shelf?! It has obviously already happened and is no longer relevant. Throw it on the discard pile!

I know this is an adult title and many of you don’t deal with the adult collections. However, there are times when a children’s or teen book might fall prey to this type of occurrence. We need to remember that newer books are not always long term. By keeping this idea in the back of our minds, we can hopefully keep a better eye out for things that have outdated themselves entirely too quickly.

Remember, if you have any reservations about keeping an item on your shelves, it is always okay to Throw-It! Happy Thursday!