Using the MUSTIE guidelines two weeks ago, Mac, Jan S. and I went through the reference section at Kelly to determine what was outdated and now inaccurate/not current (lots of reference materials focus on “current events/world leaders/etc) so they can be outdated quickly. We looked at what should be updated with new purchases, what was no longer needed, and which resources were now being used electronically. Mac took the teachers through the section for tightening it up – it is now half its size (which is fantastic) and much more current.
We are weeding older and outdated/no longer accurate materials:
Due to this weeding, we now have a new space for biographies. They were across the room near the fiction section, which is currently over capacity. There has been no more room on the shelves for new fiction books and they have ended up on the shelves above the non-fiction, across the room. Due to the new space in the reference section, we could move the biographies away from the fiction and open up that space for new fiction. Ta-da!
Mac has been shifting the fiction section into this new space to allow us to update the whole section and get those new series the kids are begging for. This is where it is happening:
We ran a weeding report in Infocentre and are looking at what books in fiction and non-fiction may need updating. We found a lot of records but the catalog can be misleading. Many could be old records that were never deleted or have been duplicated – so some of the “weeding” will be removing electronic records that have no print copy attached to them. They are like phantom records. It will be a big process for inventory this year – as I’m sure it is everywhere – but Mac is getting us right where we need to be to take stock of the collection as a whole.
