I may need to go smoke a cigarette now

I just weeded out a couple hundred volumes from the collection. And oh, my, did it feel good.

I went to a day-long workshop last week about redesigning library space, and how to best use what you have. The speaker actually spent a good part of the time talking about weeding. She said the huge problem with libraries is that we don't have enough space. And yet most of us actually waste good chunks of our very expensive space on books that aren't getting checked out--space that we could be converting to "people space" for studying, relaxing, etc.

She said we need to remember that we are public libraries. We're not museums or historical repositories or warehouses. Our priority isn't to preserve what might possibly be the last remaining copy of such-and-such. (Note: it isn't the last copy. And even if it is? Still not our job.) Our priority should be keeping a current, relevant, accurate, shiny collection of materials that will actually get checked out, thereby giving us a return on our investment. And people don't want to browse through shelves that are crammed to overflowing with dusty, outdated, dingy stuff. People go for the shiny. They are like magpies in that way.

So. I thought that was pretty cool. And since my new boss is starting on Monday I figured I'd better work fast just in case she turns out to be a hoarder.

First tackled the adult paperback section and decided that it will never be allowed to expand beyond the shelves that are specifically meant for it. If we take in something new, we ditch something old. This time around I ditched about 100 ratty books from authors that no one reads anymore.

In the YA section I had the Best. Time. Ever. Started with the Science Fiction/Fantasy section and removed all those freaky hard-cover books from the 1970s with the wretched, wretched covers. Because here's the thing--if the books are actually decent, they'll still be in print today, with new, better, shiny, appealing covers. (Example: the Dark is Rising series, which no one was checking out. But now that I've reordered cool-looking copies I can't keep it on the shelf.)




Sorry the pictures are so blurry, but you get the idea. That last one is my favorite, I think. Does anyone here know ANY 16-yr-olds who are going to pick these up? No. No you don't. Young adults have gotten used to sexy covers and there's no going back.

Then had fun in the Romance, Mystery, and Horror section chucking all the Christopher Pike and Lois Duncan and Sabrina the Teenage Witch series and whatnot.

And THEN I went over to the adult nonfiction and just went crazy wild. I got rid of humor volumes by people no one knows anymore, and the stuff about "The World We Live In" featuring the Soviet Union. (That was a big point the speaker at the workshop made: If it's outdated information, it's WRONG information.) And the twelve books about Watergate and Bill Clinton's Sins. And the Cliffs Notes. And 3 of the 6 copies of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. And pretty much anything that was dingy, old, heavy, useless, or could be found at the Utah State University library by someone who actually needs to do scholarly research.

Cannot even TELL you how much hotter these shelves are now that they've had a taste of my sweet lovin'. There's actually room in them now and what's there looks like stuff that's worth browsing. Plus it's kind of fun to get into this new mindset and to remind myself that some of these books just have a limited shelf life. And it's okay. They fill their purpose and then we retire them to make room for the books about the Bush administration and righteous sexy vampires and things that people actually care to read about in 2008.