Assignment+Four

=Assignment Four =

Weeding Report
I was unable to generate an automated report of what I weeded, so I recorded some general characteristics of the books I weeded. They were mostly weeded for similar reasons. I mostly weeded books that were out of date, and had not been signed out in decades (not years; decades!). I discarded 57 books from the sections of the library most relevant to Social Studies 5 (300’s and 900’s). Many of the books that I deselected contained maps or cultural names that were out of date. I also discarded books that were written at far too high a reading level for any students in my school. Publication dates in the 1960’s and 70’s were very common in the books I weeded. Although the books were largely in good shape, the pages were yellowed and the tape holding the cards and covers to the book had disintegrated with age. The age and circulation guidelines on page 122 of The Collection Program in Schools (Kay Bishop, Libraries Unlimited, 2007) was helpful in determining when books should be discarded for their age, and it is referred to below. I wish that I could have found a way to print out the titles, publication dates, and circulation statistics for the books I weeded, as it was quite amazing to me, but I did record that information for the ten books detailed below.

Rationale for Weeding
**1. __Kwi-Na The Eagle and Other Indian Tales__ 1967** Although the legends in this book might still be engaging, it is not appropriate to have the word “Indian” in the title when we teach that “Aboriginal” is the respectful, correct term. Bishop recommends that folklore books be no more than 15 years old, and have been signed out within 5 years. This book has not been signed out since 1992, and is a little bit older than 15 years.    Like the first selection, the title of this book uses a term which is no longer considered considered appropriate: the term “Eskimo.” Not surprisingly, considering the fact that it looks and is old and unappealing, this book has not been signed out since 1978, and even then it was only signed out twice, both times by Tony, who probably only wanted to show people the picture of the naked lady.   This book, apart from being a few years older than the maximum age of 15 years Bishop recommends for history and geography books, contained a dedication on its opening page that was probably my favourite find of the afternoon. I have included a picture, because while it is a lovely sentiment, the language it uses is so politically incorrect now. I didn`t bother to look past the dedication page to see if the content would be useful to my students; I just discarded it. Since no one had signed it out since the 70`s, I doubted that it would be missed.  
 * 2. __Life with the Eskimo__ 1977 **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. __The Riel Rebellion of 1885__ 1968 **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This was the newest book I weeded, but Bishop suggests that atlases be no more than five years old, and with good reason: maps change. The map of Canada in this book has no Nunavut, as that territory was only created in 1999. While the rest of the book still has some relevant information, it should be replaced with a more current equivalent. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book just looks laughably old, inside and out. My students' parents weren`t even born when this book was published! Imperial measurements and American focus aside, the world has changed a lot since 1965, and the maps are no longer accurate. The last time the book was signed out was 1981, which is the year I was born. If no one has shown interest in the book in the time I have been on this earth, it is probably a safe bet to weed it from the collection. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book looks and is old, and has only ever been signed out three times in its life, which amounts to once every twelve and a half years. That is longer than a history book should even be in a library. I also chose to weed it because the reading level is too high for elementary school students. The language is formal, figurative, and relies on a large amount of background knowledge that my students just do not have. Even if someone happened to be really interested in the Cabots and picked up the book, they would quickly drop it again because they would find it largely incomprehensible.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4. __My First Canadian Atlas__ 1994 **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. __A Map is a Picture__ 1965 **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6. __John and Sebastien Cabot: A Visual Biography__ 1973 **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Maybe he was super famous in the sixties, but nobody has been interested enough in this Hockey Great to sign out his book since 1977. I also discarded some other books about great Canadian sports stars from days gone by. Bishop recommends that biographies be kept until demand wanes; about 3-5 years from last checkout. I would say that demand has waned for this one. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Although Bishop suggests keeping local history books, this book is outdated and has not been signed out since 1981. I enjoyed looking at the pictures of places I know well as they were before I was born, but I also enjoyed the opening lines of the book: "Even in this age of jet planes and annual school excursions, most young Canadians know very little about Canadians who live in other regions of the country." In //this// age of social networking, many young Canadians share learning experiences with students from across the country using such online classroom tools as Moodle and Elluminate Live. This book is no longer relevant.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">7. __Rocket Richard__ 1961 **
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">8. __Opening the Canadian West__ 1980 **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book never was relevant! It really is all about BC`s log buildings and rail fences! Really! Signed out only once in 1978, this one was an easy choice to discard.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">9. __Living with Logs: British Columbia’s Log Buildings and Rail Fences__ 1974 **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This book was just plain old. This was the kind of book my parents might have read in school. Although we study the gold rush in Grade 5, I could not imagine pulling this book out as a reference for my students. Nor has anybody since 1980, apparently. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">10. __When Men Panned Gold in the Klondike__ 1961 **

Reflection
I have to say that weeding a section of my library collection was an eye-opening and fun activity. I was worried because three days before I started my assignment, my principal rearranged the entire collection, and discarded bins and bins of books. I thought I might have trouble finding any books to deselect, but I needn’t have worried! It was very easy to go through the section of the library that related to Social Studies 5 and pull out the books that were very obviously out of date, inappropriate, or irrelevant. At first I was hemming and hawing over decisions, so I brought some of the books I was struggling with to the computer and scanned them to check on their recent usage. When I saw that most of them hadn’t been signed out in decades, my choice was very easy. It also helped to refer to the age and circulation guidelines on page 122 of The Collection Program in Schools. (Kay Bishop, Libraries Unlimited, 2007) When I compared how old the books I was waffling over were and how recently they had been checked out to the standards in Bishop’s book, it also helped me to make a clear, informed decision. The books had to go! After my initial hesitation, I got into it, enjoying each ridiculous or ancient find as I pulled it out of the collection forever.

I was very lucky that my TL agreed to let me actually weed a section of the library. I asked him some questions about his weeding philosophy while I worked. He told me that he is often hesitant to discards books, because he has had to deal with the wrath of teachers coming to look for a particular book for their lesson that day, furious over finding it gone. When I asked him about some of the older books in the collection, he said that he keeps them unless he can afford to replace it, and that it’s only worth replacing if it gets used a lot. I wonder whether resources would get used more frequently if they were current and relevant, but that was his justification. I understand that he is trying to please a varied group of teachers that changes from year to year, on almost no time and no money. That is quite the challenge. The Chilliwack Teacher-Librarians’ Association Library Handbook (May, 2008) states that an exemplary school library collection be “continuously monitored for currency and relevance,” (page 4) and have “outdated and worn materials...consistently discarded by the teacher-librarian.” (page 5) Judging by the age and currency of the books I found and discarded, I would venture to say that this was not the case in my library, nor has it been for several decades. The handbook also states, however, that an exemplary school library program have “an appropriate number of fully qualified teacher-librarians...in a flexibly scheduled environment.” (page 3) As this is certainly not the case, it is not surprising that our collection has fallen behind on maintenance. Part of what I learned from this experience was the huge amount of time that it takes to maintain a library collection, and when a TL has no flexible library time, all of that collection development and maintenance time would be his own time.

I sat in front of the shelf related to my subject area, and pulled out book after book. After checking their publication date, I scanned their title, tale of contents, and flipped through the pages to check for currency and relevance. I also used the computer records of usage to help me determine how often the book was signed out. I pulled a lot of books out of a small section, and left a lot of empty space on the shelves. I then discarded the books from our system, peeled off the bar code so they wouldn’t accidentally get checked back in, and wrote ‘discard’ on them. My TL asked me to leave them for him to see, but when I return to school this week I will pull a few books that would be appropriate for the book sale one of the classes is holding, but most I will recycle. It was an exciting process, but at the end of it, I felt like I could sit down in front of the shelf in the same location, and pull out at least as many books again. The collection was so outdated; it was simple to pull out some that obviously needed to be weeded. I think that I could do a more thorough investigation and deselect another large swath of books. I think that it was a good choice to have us start by weeding an area with whose content we were familiar. As I was skimming books, I found that it was easy for me to evaluate the currency and relevancy of books in my curriculum area and maps in my geographical area, but that books outside of my areas of expertise were harder to evaluate. For example, a book about Africa was hard for me to evaluate. I am sure that there have been changes in borders and geographical information, but I do not know them all. That is where I would have to rely on standards such as those in Bishop’s text to inform my decisions.

Overall, I very much enjoyed the process of weeding. It helped me to get to know the collection more intimately. It helped me to become aware of what resources are available, and of what gaps exist. It was informative and fun. I am glad that I got the chance to actually deselect and discard books. There is nothing like a hands-on experience to aid the learning process. The biggest question I have after the whole process is, however, why, why, WHY did the TL who was at my school in 2000 when the system switched from cards to computer bother to input all of the books from the 60’s and 70’s into the computer system? It must have been a lot of work, and for books that had not been checked out since the 70’s and 80’s, it would have been so much easier to discard them! I learned that it takes time to maintain a library collection, but it also takes careful, informed consideration. The end result, however, is a collection that is current relevant, and highly usable.