Okay so first, with regards to my last post about the anime club, I happen to have a friend who's an anime expert and she's going to send me a list of suggested anime that I can show children. One girl who comes every month also informed me that just about anything through Funimation will probably be okay to show. Thanks goodness.
Now, on to random things I've learned in school. On Sunday I have a paper due on the process of weeding materials. We're suppose to go to a library and using lectures and reading materials, we're suppose to weed a shelf then write about it. The paper will include everything from where the books we chose to weed are shelved, to the condition of the books, to how and why we chose to weed what we chose. I decided to weed the math section, there were about 30 to 40 books, and because I'm luck enough to work in a library I was able to access statistics such as amount of times the individual books circulated and when was the last time the book was checked out.
So it turns out that most of our math materials are not only over 10 years old but they don't circulate well. However there were a few books that were older than 10 years and had circulated like, 58 times, but the last time it had been checked out was like two years ago. What does that mean? What do you do? The book hasn't been checked out in a while, but it has circulated quite a bit. Do you keep it? Do you get rid of it? I tried looking the books up to see if there were updated copies and there were not. It's a tad bit confusing. I guess my though it to keep the book and try to flag it in some way. Go back to the book a year later and if it still hasn't been checked out then get rid of it. That's my suggestion but I wonder what other professionals would do?
I did a similar project (probably for the same class) for my MLS in CT. I tried at first to set certain rules, like if a book hadn't circulated in the past five years, out it goes, but there are so many other factors. I considered if it was outdated information (although I guess math never really changes), the condition it was in, and if it was appealing. If the math books are for kids for example, and they are really old and look like they were published in the 70s are the kids going to pick them up? A high circulation number is nice, but if it hasn't moved in 2 years, there's a reason. You may want to consider getting newer materials (even if it isn't a new edition of the same book.) Or consider using the books in a display. See what goes and what isn't touched.
ReplyDeleteA display is a good idea, I normally focus on displaying new fiction materials or biographies, but who knows, and I agree with you, it's time for some new material, we're scheduling a meeting with one of our book vendors, soon, non-fiction curriculum will definitely be on the list.
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