Weeding, deaccessioning, deselection

Yes, weeding is the technical term we librarians use to describe the periodic removal of obsolete, embarrassing, and otherwise inappropriate books from our collections. My friend Maurice reminded me of this delightful process in his comment on my posting about the Gallery of Regrettable Food. In a small library like ours, and to properly serve our clientele, we need to make sure our collection is up-to-date and relevant. But we don't toss books willy-nilly. Like most school libraries, we've got a policy and a procedure. A book doesn't go unless it meets (or fails to meet) several criteria.

The very idea of weeding is not without its detractors. The most famous of them is novelist William Nicholson, who has spent a considerable chunk of his own change buying up old books that would otherwise be destined for the trash heap. I'm happy to say that we've got a great fallback position here by being part of a venerable research library. We get to ship our weeded books (at least those that are not already held by the University Library) to the Main Stacks or to the new Oak Street high-density, climate-controlled storage facility. Ironically, our weeded books will be better taken care of than those that remain on our decrepit shelves. Hmmmm....