Thanks for all the advice everyone! 2800 holdings discarded later, my shelves look much better! And I found a local organization that will take all my boxed discards and do the work of finding homes for them. Huzzah!
Karen Ulric Upper School Librarian Golda Och Academy 1418 Pleasant Valley Way West Orange, NJ 07052 973-602-3653 [WHYGOAbutton]<http://www.goldaochacademy.org/admissions/why-goa> www.GoldaOchAcademy.org<http://www.goldaochacademy.org/> [facebook EMAIL]<https://www.facebook.com/GoldaOchAcademy> [twitter EMAIL] <https://twitter.com/GoldaOchAcademy> [pinterest EMAIL] <http://pinterest.com/goldaochacademy/> Growing Minds. Nurturing Hearts. Strengthening Tradition. From: Evi [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 6:31 PM To: Ulric, Karen Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ha-Safran] weeding fiction! ack! help! I was the librarian at Yeshiva Atlanta when we recvd the Avi Chai grant. Weeding is the flip side of acquisitions. First rule: develop a library mission statement. Regarding literature, we decided to go with the top 100 MLA and Harvard list of classics. But that was 15 years ago. The game changer--ebooks, tablets and Openlibrary.org<http://Openlibrary.org> with 800,000 ebooks (the other 1.2 million ebooks are for dyslexic, hearing or vision impaired--see website for details to get a key). Yes, Amos Oz is there. If it's never been checked out, poor condition, have a book sale. I'm currently setting up as a volunteer a library for a girl's high school that just moved into their new building. I had 7 boxes that I weeded out for starters. They sat there. Excuse for not getting rid of books--many girls don't have Internet at home. My response: each girl is assigned a netbook. They can stay late to do research. Result:7 boxes tossed. I am grappling with how many historic photo books from 1950's-60's of Israel I keep. I'll check prices on Amazon to help decide. Most of these photos are on the Internet. I weeded over 2000 books this year from my elementary public school collection. The library looks great. It helped that i had extra funds from a Laura Bush Foundation grant. But in reality, if a book is out of date, even if you have nothing else on the topic, it's got to go. Evi Reznick McLendon Elementary Decatur, GA On May 27, 2015, at 1:16 AM, Fred Isaac <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Karen -- In my consultancies over the years, I've started by identifying the books in several different ways. For example: Vital items no library should be without Popular books Another trick (of the mind) is to empty every shelf (in turn, obviously), and ask yourself "if I was creating the library from scratch, would I include this volume?" I can't remember who introduced me to the concept, but if you think of yourself as creating the collection, rather than reducing it, the new frame will help you eliminate much of the dead wood. In addition, you can add back things you want to at the end. Fred On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 1:45 PM, Amalia Warshenbrot <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Karen, As you may guess every librarian struggles with this question. If you have space keep them pease do because, as you noted, they are centra to our identity as Jews. I think that day schools are not yet ready for digital books only. I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion. Amalia Sent from my iPad On May 26, 2015, at 4:00 PM, "Ulric, Karen" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: So – my library (grades 6-12 school library of approximately 12K volumes) is getting a major renovation this summer – all new furniture (first time in over 20 years), paint, carpet, possibly reopening my boarded over skylight, electrical work, etc. In anticipation of not wanting to box up things I don’t want any more I’ve started some significant weeding, and need some advice in my fiction section. I’ve noted everything with a zero circ since I started using OPALS. Which is highly depressing, actually, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. I just don’t know what to do with my collections of authors like Agnon and Oz, most of which has never circulated, many of which are old tired looking editions. And yet they are central to our identity as a Jewish library. Knowing our students and our curriculum I do not think replacing them with fresher editions will make much difference (although it might help a little). They aren’t pleasure reading for my students, my teachers likely have read them already, or own them, and they aren’t being assigned as part of the curriculum. I have the same issue with authors like Twain ,and Henry James. Unless it is an assigned title they aren’t circulating, but it feels wrong to weed them despite needing the space and their lack of use. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Karen Ulric Upper School Library.
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