Don't Be Fooled By the Weed-After-5-Years Myth

Pixabay image

In my consulting work with youth staffers at all sizes of libraries, I regularly run into  the belief that information books should be weeded after five years. While this may be true in adult information book collections (I doubt it, though), it is a slippery slope in youth information book collections.

Some areas of information books beg to be updated. Books about states or countries - although for my money database subscriptions and no print in this area make far more financial sense; books on technology; gaming; internet, coding and etc; some applied science and general science; updated information on social issues, cultures and history reflective not of a white majority viewpoint but of  people representative of the culture or marginalized group are just a few examples of areas that need frequent updating due to fast-changing information.

Other information books have content that is fairly timeless. The phases of the moon; the water cycle; mythology; biography; animals; pets; maker-crafts are examples.

So weeding calls for far more nuance than an every-five-years-toss.

I wonder whether a reliance on series non-fiction, many of which are "revised" frequently, fuels the 5-year-weed rule in youth books. While publishers of series nonfiction tout their oft-revised editions, careful examination of the revision often reveals that only 2-4 pages have been changed - one is inevitably the copyright page and the matching page in the signature which may feature a new photograph or box of information. The revision is slight but the spending of precious budget money to purchase the "revised" edition is huge. The old copy is weeded and the new one acquired.

While this may work for series nonfiction, it is a killer for quality information books.

Overall, the number of high quality information books published outside of series NF quality is fairly small. Information books that excite and inform with clear text, high quality writing;  illustration/photography that matches and enhances the text and a true respect for children's and teen's understanding are wonderful and rare. When I served on the Siebert Committee, each quality book, even if it wasn't honored by the award, was a cause for celebration (a book on coyotes! a book on Congo Square! a book on the White Rose movement! a book on Basquiat!).

When a quality information book is published, the care taken by the author, editor and publisher most often produces a timeless book whose purpose is to create a work of lasting information value for youth. They can be benchmark books that can used in collections for decades.

A biography like Barton's The Day Glo brothers: the true story of Bob and Joe Switzer's bright ideas and brand-new colors (2009); Gibbons' Cars and how they go (1983); D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths (1962); Branley's The Moon Seems to Change (1987) are just a few examples of information books whose information and presentation for kids have stood the test of time. There are lots more we can think of.

Authors/illustrators produce information books on subjects that might be addressed once every two or three decades - or even longer. Book creators like Russell Freedman, Jason Chin, Jean Fritz, April Sayre, Sy Montgomery, Kadir Nelson, Larry Dane Brimmer, Candace Fleming, Barbara Kerley, Jim Murphy, Carol Boston Weatherford, Steve Sheinkin, Phillip Hoose, Jan Greenburg, Nic Bishop, Ann Bausam, Susan Campbell Bartoletti and a host of others often write books that can be part of collections for generations.

By using a rigid five year weeding rule, we run the very real danger of eliminating books of great worth in our information book collections.

So before just looking at copyright date on information books, we need to look at the subject, how it is treated, whether there are other books of quality that address the subject and consider keeping a high quality nonfiction book with information that is still relevant and illustrative material that still works.

Our collections are deeper and better when we think beyond five year weeds to the true nature of quality information books for kids.

Buy It! What Are You Afraid Of?

[Deja vu, baby!!  While I was doing some New Year's cleanup on the blog, I accidently re-published this post from a few years ago. It still looks about right so here it is again!]

Book buying money is always tight - no matter what size library you come from. Each day, selectors have to make decisions among the many new books published about what to spend their dollars on.  One thing I have noticed with some libraries is an interesting reluctance to buy multiple copies of youth books that kids really want.  What's up with that?

Adult book buyers are legend in buying multiple copies of most requested and best seller books that generate massive circ for a short time. After their brief summer of love is over, extra copies of these books are weeded out. They have done their duty and reproduced multiple circs while they were wildly popular. They really earned their keep.Not all youth book buyers go about their purchasing like this. But why not?

I find that I get more than three requests for a title or series in a week at the desk, something is trending for kids. Talking to other staffers on the desk reveals others are also getting the same request (like, doh). And of course looking at what is on the "holds" or "reserve" shelves also gives you a vital clue on what kids are asking for.  It's time to beef up the collection and give them what they want. 

If it takes ten copies of a Lego book, so be it. If it's fourteen more copies of each Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, Ninjago, Barbie, Dora, Yo Gabba Gabba, I say yes. Sure it spends down precious dollars - but it also answers expressed needs of kids. One of my colleagues wisely added an extra copy of the first (and sometimes second and third) book in a series, knowing that kids often want to start at the beginning but may lose interest in a series later on. By providing multiples of the first book, she made sure that kids could find that elusive "first" on the shelf more often and kept the gateway to the series - and the library-open..

 I sometimes hear that, since libraries share resources, if one library buys multiple copies but others in the system don't, those circs and copies are going too far afield. Really? It actually means that kids everywhere - including at the buying library! - are receiving their books faster. Reserve queues disappear and the books are back on your shelves faster to continue to meet the needs of kids walking in.

Once the frenzy is over, multiples can be weeded out to the delight of kid buyers at library booksales.  If the books have circed even 15-20 times, you have gotten your initial investment back and more.  And the larger investment of kids knowing they can find what they want at your library is worth gold. You are showing them that the library understands their reading needs and delights.

We all walk the tightrope between providing amazing literature for kids and providing popular books with limited "lit-tret-ture" bona fides.  Balancing between those two ends of the continuum is tricky but can be done.  Go ahead....don't be afraid!

Image: 'Fixing the Money Pipeline'  http://www.flickr.com/photos/26767541@N00/2464975037
 

Color Us Thrilled!

Like most of you, we look closely at our collections, their arrangement and their kid-friendliness. We successfully morphed our Picture Book collection into Picture Book City "neighborhoods" and stopped fighting board books and made them 100% browseable in easy-to-access bins - both great "accessibility" decisions.

Since Alan, our new head of Collection Management (CM), started two years ago - and we changed our ILS - these types of changes have been far easier. Why? He has two kids and he really "gets" youth services. He knows how challenging big collections are for children seeking information and favorite books. The Dewey Decimal and multiple fiction collections with strange letters and symbols sitting atop author's last names and so.many.books.everywhere. can make a library visit overwhelming.

Our newest collection update was something that Al suggested as soon as he started working here. "Why," he mused, "don't you just color code the spine labels for your different fiction collections (early readers, graphic novels, chapter books, illustrated fiction)?" Why indeed. This coincided with an observation I made when I had first started. Since our catalog clearly spells out what particular fiction collection a book is located in (thank you automation), why do we need to even have a suffix (+, P, E, jgn or jif) as part of the call number in the catalog? We could save cataloging time by simply going suffix-less in the call number field.

Then, like peanut butter and chocolate running into each other and producing a peanut butter cup, we realized that if we took our two ideas (colored labels and no call number suffix on both books and in the catalog) we would save a ton of processing time and reach a hoped for goal- easy kids access. Al's idea sparked us!

We designated unique colors for each of our fiction collections - and while we were at it divided out our chapter book collection into tween and chapter books: early readers = pink; jgn = red; illustrated fiction = purple; chapter = green; tween =orange. Then we simply added the appropriately colored overlays to our existing collections and did global changes to wipe out the suffixes in the catalog's call number field (there's that slick new ILS!). All new books come down from CM without a suffix ((E, +, jgn, jif)  - the spine label simply has the first three letters of the author's last name or main entry. YS staff quickly determines which fiction collection each belongs in, puts on a colored overlay and batch updates the catalog.

Colored overlays show what collection books belong to. Top three books display sleek new suffix-less labels!

The results?

• Kids (and shelvers!) more easily can spot the types of books they are looking for. 
• The colored collections make a quick shorthand way for desk staffers to direct kids to books ("Let's find that in the red section where graphic novels are.") ,
• Our Collection Management catalogers and processors no longer have to agonize over exactly which collection a book fits in or do small batch processing to cope with the differences between fiction collection labels. 
• If we think a book would be better in a different collection, we simply make a quick change in overlays and a catalog update. 
• The overlays themselves - which we have used on other collections around the library - are long lasting but still peel-offable if we want to do a reclass of individual books.

Left: Illustrated fiction (purple labels). Right: Graphic Novels

A strong partnership with a visionary CM manager and a willing YS team made the difference in making this user friendly and more efficient library workflow change.

I think simplifying Dewey numbers may be next!

Happy 50th Anniversary CCBC!

I've always consdered myself one lucky duck to work in the same state as the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) in Madison. This book examination center headed by K.T. Horning and womaned by an amazing staff that includes Megan Schliesman, Merri Lindgren and Emily Townsend (as well as a stellar universe of former librarians who continue to shine out wherever they are employed - and hats off to Ginny Moore Kruse for her work in developing the CCBC into a national as well as state force) has been a touchstone throughout my career.

There have been a number of celebrations this year around their 50th anniversary, including a recent one at the Friends of the CCBC annual meeting. I was thrilled to be asked to be part of a panel presenting on ways in which the panelists used the CCBC resources in their work. Our panel was comprised of a research university prof; an author/historian researcher; a university prof/researcher/writer...and me!

Here are my actual notes for the talk I gave. Lots of laughter when I showed the audience what I was speaking from. The catalog card is significant for many reasons not least of which the CCBC has meant so much to me and my practice of youth librarianship that I only need a hint to share the good stuff.

Library School Student - the CCBC was just a hallway down from SLIS. As a youth focused SLIS student I could access the newest books and get to know the breadth of children's literature and research on it with the best reference desk. I got strong.

Collection Development - the CCBC was a must-go early in my career as I honed my collection development chops. I would bring down stacks of old catalog cards with titles jotted on the blank side to look at and decide if we REALLY needed that particular title. And I found great unreviewed material like books in the incredible Small Press Collection to add to the collection. I could go back to my director with a stack of cards of what we didn't buy because I actually had the book in hand. He made the connection, and always funded these quarterly, 8-9 hour round trips to Madison.

Colleague Connector - the CCBC was the unsuspecting facilitator of some of my strongest connections with school colleagues. My favorite connection happened with Judy, our district reading coordianator. An invite to experience the CCBC with me and spend those 3 hours commuting resulted in big ideas and a lasting connection that informed our amazing partnership work for twenty years between the library and schools.

CCBC Advisory Board - I served on the board twice and I learned even more about the resources and the many ways both school and public libraries accessed the collections and information. It helped me hone my leadership skills as well!

Book Discussions - the time I spent participating in the monthly book discussions taught me how to truly learn the art of careful listening and powerful advocacy for books. National level book award committees use the CCBC Discussion Guidelines for a reason. They work! Eveything I am as a reviewer for SLJ and in my award committee discussion work I owe to the CCBC and that modeling and training and experience.

Intellectual Freedom Service - not many people outside of our state know, but for decades the CCBC has helped WI librarians navigate book challenges by providing, in complete confidentiality, reviews and other support materials to help answer a challenge. Ably run for the past twelve years by this year's WLA/WEMTA Intellectual Freedom Award winner Megan Schliesman, this service has helped me twice in my career. And I appreciate it.

Multicultural Focus - The CCBC , with its annual CCBC Choices publication and long-running observations and discussions of muticultural issues in publishing, has helped me hugely in creating a collection that reflects our world. Conferences, speakers, authors and illustrators have been brought to me as well through their work in this area. They helped me develop a strong collection early on.

I was honored to be asked to represent a working librarian's perspective on the panel (and I tell you humbled by the company I was keeping!). Congratulations to the CCBC on their 50th and many, many more great years to you!

Top 12 Ways to be a BAD Selector - Part 2

Continuing on our hit parade of poor selection practices, I bring you part two.

7. Buy heavily in areas you like (cats; dogs; babies; horses; crafts; dad-daughter books) and ignore or shortchange the rest. We all love certain stuff and sniffily disdain other things we personally don't care for. A great selector pretends to be everyman and everywoman and buys widely and well in areas they have no personal stake in or love for. Recognizing your passions and realizing that they are not the only ones are signs you are going in the right direction.

8. Never weed books that you read and loved as a child. A corollary of the above. Getting to know the difference between a true classic that should be kept as opposed to your heart-stopping book adoration of your younger days is critical. It's always hard to bid farewell to something YOU think EVERYBODY should be reading - but they aren't. Sometimes buying a used copy for your own home library is the best solution to that heartache.

9. Buy lots of series non-fiction. While there are some stellar non-fiction series for kids, many are more marginal - poorly written, ho-hum photos like your Uncle Bob used to take, and often rubber stamp "revisions" that change a photo or two or add a box of new information and get a new copyright date to entice you to "update" the series every 5 years.  These series can definitely have a place in areas that kids are ravenous to get their hands on anything (dinosaurs! crafts! transportation! pets!). But they can be a budget sink hole in other areas - buy two copies of a great book detailing all the animals in a particular species for $15.99 each or buy ten single books on ten different animals within this species for $23.00 each?

10. Don't weed - and if you have to, try not to do it more often than annually or biennially or every five years. Another critical area. "I bought those books, I can't just get rid of them". Weeding is one of those easy things to do if you spend a little time daily/weekly in the collection, straightening, looking at what comes and goes; is used or unused; necessary or just a bit too much in the same area/subject. Rather than waiting to do it once in a while, regular weeding keeps the collection fresh and provides a far less stressful experience than wading in once in a blue moon. It also makes it more manageable to quickly look up replacements or do a literature search to strengthen a small area of the collection on an on-going basis.

11. Practice extreme ownership over areas you select in and don't let colleagues make suggestions or add other material. A truly diverse collection reflects many viewpoints and many strengths. Involving and inviting other staffers to put their oar in only makes for a stronger collection. No selector should ever own a collection. Practice generosity in selection and watch the materials fly off the shelves.

12. Never respond to patron requests. "Bleeh, they just want junk". On the other hand, they pay for every book and material and your salary. Give patrons what they want (if it falls within your collection policy). You may actually discover something new or areas you were unknowingly deficient in. You'll still have plenty of budget to get great literature. But you'll have won the trust of your bosses.

What bad selector ways have you seen, read about or observed? Dish!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

Top 12 Ways to be a BAD Selector - Part 1

Most of us love the collection development parts of our job.  But sometimes it can also get overwhelming and we make decisions that seem to work in the short-run but have implications in the long-run. The rabbit hole of poor selection decisions can get pretty deep.

We all have areas that we need to improve on in our work as selectors, de-selectors and collection strengtheners.  Are these some of your problem areas or models that management or co-workers expect for your department?

1. Only buy new material; don't bother with replacements or building or strengthening weak areas of the collection. The easiest thing in the world is to get excited and order all the new goodies published and buzzed about. It's sloggy work to go back to fill in holes in the collection and seek out areas that need a boost. But it is this work that the development in collection development is all about. Building a collection is more than the new - it's also creating depth and breadth - which often means researching and buying slightly older titles, buying duplicates for heavily used items, and filling in series and collections where titles have been lost or damaged.

2. Make sure to ignore books with diverse characters and cultures since "no one like that lives here." Quit it. We live in a global society with a rainbow of faces, cultures and creeds. Having books that represent this diversity is a non-negotiable essential. Every book doesn't have to fly off the shelf but it needs to be there so children can not just find themselves but also know there are many people in our world that have lives different - yet similar- to their own.

3. Never buy non-fiction paperbacks or any paperbacks for that matter- those skinny spines are hard to label and they won't last. The great majority of children's books published are not classics. Oops! Sorry. I said it. How long do you need a book on a popular but ephemeral character to last? If you need as many dog or dinosaur books as humanly possibly, why not add additional paperback copies to stretch your budget? If you can buy three books for the price of one (or for some series non-fiction five-seven books), and you only need that character/subject concentration for three-five years, what's the hold-up? Paperbacks can strengthen your collection - for all ages, fiction and non-fiction - and provide needed materials. And I have a secret to share: non-fiction books in general circ far more slowly than other parts of your collection. Non-fiction paperbacks in areas that get only occasional use can stand up and last as long as a hardcover in terms of currency and use by kids.

4. Don't read, skim or listen to the new material to get more familiar with it. Buy it and be done with it. Or try a better idea: get to know the material beyond the review. Page through it quickly before it goes out to familiarize yourself with it. Listen to it on your work commute. Read it at home. Join or establish a youth book club to discuss books. Librarians who actually know the material are those reader advisors that all the kids seek out. Actually knowing books and non-print means passion, knowledge and the ability to truly connect the right kid with the right book.

5. Buy lots of pre-bound and library binding books - kids are so hard on books. Perhaps, but in every age collection? Picture book as well as chapter books as well as non-fiction? Pre-bounds are simply paperbacks with a armor-plated covers. Almost all chapter books are printed on the most acidy-barely-above-newsprint paper known to publishers. The pages disintegrate decades before the covers go. Picture books and wildly popular non-fiction books do take a beating. You might justify the added expense since, because of their illustrations, they are printed on higher quality paper. But how long do you need that book to last given the ever-changing needs of readers. Pre-bounds and library bindings add expense. Can your budget really stand it?

6. Accept "preview packs" or pre-selected books. The job of most cold call salespeople on these things is to get you to accept the whole package of often marginal or remaindered stock. Most of what you see won't be worth it. And the pressure to accept all the contents (better discount!) rather than re-package and send back the unwanted selections is high. We all have better selection skills than this no matter how busy we are.

The next post will continue along this sorry path of poor selection ideas. Stay tuned!


Graphic courtesy of Pixabay

Rich Beyond the Dreams of Avarice: Start with a Book Blog Tour

This week I'm joining the Start with a Book blog tour organized by Amy over at Show Me Librarian.

It was an easy yes when Amy asked if I might be interested in participating. The Start with a Book site is so rich I almost feel like a millionaire when I am using it. So.much.at.my.fingertips.

As busy librarians, we juggle so many balls in the air - desk work, programming, budgets, selection, displays, outreach, planning and more. So time is often precious no matter what size library we work at. With summer around the corner, the speed of the balls increases exponentially.

When I discovered this resource, a project of Reading Rockets, my work got immeasurably easier.  While the site supports parents and caregivers, it a treasure trove for librarians as well. I'd like to sprinkle some gold and jewels on one of my favorite parts of the website: the 24 Learning Summer Themes.Once there we are greeted by lots of fresh-faced and diverse children ready to take us on incredibly rich adventures in math, science, social studies - all with strong literacy support.

Pick a theme, click, and scream with happiness!  You find a  list of excellent book titles for multiple ages that can be used as a selection tool to strengthen your collection or to pull for a display inhouse if you already own them at the library.  You also discover a nifty downloadable pdf  "Reading Adventure Pack" that supplies activities, questions and information on effectively using both fiction and non-fiction books for kids. These packs could easily be put together and made available to your families to check out.

Each theme also has a number of resources  featuring more activities, videos, apps and exemplary websites for kids and families to browse to learn more information. One of the perks of this portion of the theme is it lays out rich content that can be easily used to build programs for kids at the library.  Everything in the themes truly underscores literacy and adventure for kids.

It's almost a steal to have this kind of resource at our fingertips as librarians. If you haven't been here before, be sure to dig into this treasure chest of ideas not only for summer but also year round!

Wading through the Weeds - Deselection and Me

Collections are big and ungainly things. No matter how hard you try, they grow like topsy. But like any weedy thing, too much growth sucks up space, oxygen and *things* start taking over. Soon the weedy things completely obscure the healthy things and before you know it, kids and families start wandering aimlessly through the growth praying to the gods and goddesses to get them out of there.

Ah, it is clearly August in libraryland. A time when the minds of youth librarians turn to tending those shelves and making some progress through the weeds. There I found myself today working with a colleague and talking about what, for me, is an absolute favorite library activity - deselection!

Maybe I like it because weeding as an activity is a microcosm of management - a hundred tiny decisions that need to be made with confidence. Some are quick; some are slower and some can't be made at just that moment and the book needs to be re-shelved to see how it fares for a little more time.  Perhaps a bit more face-out display time for this one or handselling to kids might jumpstart it. There is an element of careful consideration and finesse that I enjoy as well.

Today we were in chapter books discussing the kind of criteria that we need to think about to make good weeding decisions.  Condition is always easy (Eeeee-yooooo = toss!). Of course, if it's popular, then we need to re-order. 

How is the circulation on the item?  With a three week check-out period, an item could have 17 circs per year in a perfect world of everyone keeping books exactly three weeks and no overdues. But more realistically, we expect most chapter books to have an annual turnover average of 4-6 circs. Way over that number and we may buy an additional copy. Way under...oh-oh, not making the shelf-rent and we'll have to evict you.

What is this book really?  Has it stood the test of time and emerged as a keeper?  Has the story, the writing, the plot and the language endured and found a home with the readers in our community.  We have many books that are between 4-5 years old that have not crossed over that divide.  Reviewed well but never truly a fit; sadly un-checked out; written by authors once - or never- popular, these books need thought but often must leave the island as well.

Books that are pedestrain in content (think the equivalent of series nonfiction - churned out; undistinguished; full of bad cover art and clearly aimed at a school audience that needs to "keep to a reading level") are an easy fling.  Books once popular but fading in appreciation (oh Beverly Cleary, this is killing me), get to stay but only in a guilty way.  As a resource library, we can always make the argument that our collection needs to be deep after all.

And finally, how does the book fit into the overall collection. Is it just one of eleventy-zillion fantasies and a poor circ'er? Good-bye. Is it our only book written from the viewpoint of a camel (let me check the circ on that and get back to you) with fairly wretched original reviews?  Buy-bye. Do we only have the third book in the series and the rest are out of print? Sayonara.

Though the reader in me calls out to keep them all, the realist knows that we have reached a capacity that calls for one book weeded for every one cataloged. So it comforts me to think of these books going to our Friends who will sell them and give us the money to fund our programs and initiatives.

And don't our shelves look dandy and the beep of increased circs for the remaining books sound nice?

Image: 'La caverne aux livres' http://www.flickr.com/photos/24183489@N00/395079578

Needin' Some Weedin'

Travis over at 100 Scope Notes has a wonderful post on weeding -complete with pix. He also includes the handy MUSTY guidelines and ALA resources. As you look at the books that are getting the heave-ho, it is obvious just how out-dated they are. I mean these were totally weed-worthy! I am a huge advocate of weeding and these pictures remind me of a favorite episode in my weeding adventures.

Many years ago, I started a new job at a library whose non-fiction had not been weeded in...I don't know, maybe forever? The collection was jammed with junk- pre-50-states-books; the famous 629s filled with the proverbial pre-moon landing books; science and social studies books "in color" - which meant the black and white line drawings featured a wash of puke orange or hideous pea green or urine yellow; weather books with 1950's photos and other books with fabulously nerdy photos of 1950's-'60's kids far removed from the rockin' 80s looks our community kids were sporting. I weeded with a vengeance.

My co-workers were visibly upset - worried that I was taking out too much and that too many good books were going. So I put everything I planned to weed on book carts, put them in the workroom and invited everyone to pull out and save anything they thought should stay. It wasn't a challenge. I really wanted them to feel comfortable with what I was doing - they knew the customer needs better than I did.

After a week, both co-workers came to me and said that they had no idea we had such old stuff. Once they saw what was going and really looked, it made perfect sense why such outdated, old material was no longer relevant. We all sat down and made lists of areas of the collection we needed to update. Those lists became our guidelines for purchase and we strengthened and rebuilt the collection into a vital one within two years.

Seeing was believing. And weeding became an accepted part of everyone's work.

Photo from Awful Library Books