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January 26, 2015 by Robin Willis

Middle Grade Monday – Weeding in the Age of Online Subscriptions

January 26, 2015 by Robin Willis   5 comments

I’ve been weeding a lot this year. I’m usually a gradual weeder. I take a section of the collection each year and go through it with a fine tooth comb looking for items that are missing pages, moldy, defaced, or severely out of date. How often do I find moldy items? I work in a middle school library. This age is really hard on books. Probably harder than any group I’ve worked with except for toddlers. The students put everything in their book bags – open Capri Sun pouches, mud covered gym sneakers – everything.

But this year is different. I decided to go through the non fiction collection and pull out anything that is severely out of date. Now that we have ready access to regularly updated information in our online subscriptions, I find that my definition of severely out of date is changing. Has this happened to you? We still have our opening day collection of country information books (their copyright ranges from 1992 to 1999.) Before we had a subscription to Culture Grams online and a computer for every student, they were indispensable. Now they just collect dust. I find the same to be true of almost everything that was purchased for the opening collection that was intended for ‘report writing’ type of research. The information we have available online, whether through a paid of free resource, is updated regularly and much more appealing to my students. I know that without these books cluttering up our shelves, my students will have an easier time finding reading materials they really want. But the shelves will be so empty! Of course, that might have something to do with 8+ years of woefully inadequate budgets…

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Anyway, here is a picture of my weeding carts, just for inspiration (if you, like me, need to take a serious look at your collection.)

And, because I can’t resist, here is my favorite from weeding so far:

Filed under: Middle Grade Monday

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About Robin Willis

After working in middle school libraries for over 20 years, Robin Willis now works in a public library system in Maryland.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Karen Jensen, TLT says

    January 26, 2015 at 2:25 pm

    On the plus side, at least Kate Moss is still actually modeling. And mustaches are totally in again.

    • Beverley Graham says

      January 27, 2015 at 3:17 pm

      I’ve decided not to weed mine yet. Recently my grade 7 & 8 students started borrowing them again! I just mention that the books are slightly dated (Circa 2000-2006) and that if they want current stats to look it up online.

  2. Michelle Glatt says

    January 26, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    I find myself in a similar situation–not quite certain I should get rid of country books from the early 2000s since there would be “nothing on the shelves.” I used to subscribe to Culture Grams. Then I reviewed their product for the 50 states and found many errors. Knowing that I am not as qualified to spot them in information about other countries makes me nervous to continue that subscription. However, I am also doing my students a disservice by asking them to rely on outdated statistics and other information in the books. I do, however, have access to World Book Online and Gale Virtual Reference Library, so it might just be time to let those books go.

    I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned inadequate budgets. I just placed my only order for the entire school year (for one of my two schools) which will be paid for with district money, and I will be getting about 45 books. My student population is about 750. Scholastic Fairs can’t make up for that much of a shortfall.

  3. Robin Willis says

    January 27, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    Like you, I kept our materials that are from 2000 forward, but I figured at least it would be better for them to borrow those than the older ones. An imperfect solution…

  4. Beth says

    February 20, 2015 at 9:51 am

    Thanks for writing about this! I’m a little slow to read your post, but the day I read it was the very day I was thinking about the same thing in terms of country books! I just started weeding the 500’s today…Oy!

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