Weeding

** I wrote this on Sunday 8/30/15 and forgot to click publish...oops!**

   For those that I haven't talked to, I've inherited a lot of books...I mean A LOT of books. I think last I heard it was over 40,000.
   During my librarian courses with UNT, I remember weeding (getting rid of books) being sort of a controversial topic. Some librarians believe in conserving books and holding onto them for future patrons to enjoy. Others believe in constant, consistent weeding leaving relevant books/materials on the shelves. I think I'm part of that latter group. It's no secret that as technology grows and changes, libraries and their livelihood is being threatened. I believe, in order to stay relevant, libraries can't be museums. We must be a place that serves our students and teachers with modern tools to help them be successful in their education.
   This week was the first week of school. That first week is crazy for teachers- getting a class of new kids, teaching procedures, first week paperwork, lesson plans, etc...To let all of that take place, administration and I decided it would be best for library lessons to start next week. By the way, if I ever needed confirmation that I was meant to be a teacher, this week would have been it. I was so sad without a class of my own! I was dying for some students to stop in and take advantage of the library. It was a very long week. Since I had a lot of time on my hands without any students, it was a perfect opportunity to attempt some weeding. Just off to the side of my library I have a huge connected room that's known as the "reference room". It has tables for classes, a small area of guided reading books for teachers, study carrels, a laptop cart, and SHELVES of reference materials.  This is a great area that has a lot of potential and I've got BIG plans for it come January.
   Another thing I took away from UNT is that there is no right or wrong way when it comes to weeding. All sorts of factors play in- physical condition, copyright date, usage, etc.. So, armed with this weeding guide: Carnegie Library , I spent 2 full days examining our reference materials. I think the oldest item I found was a couple of books from 1936. I have quite a few books marked that will need to go. It's a good start but I still have the entire library, magazine room, A/V room, and professional collection room to weed.  As of right now our district does not have a formal policy so that's a whole other process I'll need to tackle.

   Here's pictures of what I'm looking at right now in the reference room. My goal is to make it usable by January!!

In other news:
-kids come in for library lessons tomorrow, I'm SOOOO excited!
-I found out this week that my mentor will be our district's high school librarian (there's only 2 of us in the district, haha), she's awesome and I'm pumped to learn from her.
-I've been pitching my crazy idea about our reference room to administrators in the district office and I've received a lot of positive feedback. I'm excited to get this idea in motion!


 I can't wait to start writing about the lessons I've done!