One of the last tasks I completed before leaving the South Boston (VA) Public Library was a weed of the large print collection. Not only was it time (the job had not been completed in several years) but it was in dire need of a weeding. I cut the collection down by close to a third and in some cases (certain authors by half) and laid out plans to regrow in by the amount lost in a little over 6 months.
What I Weeded
Weeding is not an exact science, or at least by all the designs I saw. Cut a book that has not be circulated in years? Or leave it to grow by discarding a book that has been over circulated? During this weed, I tended to discard books that had not been checked out in the past three years automatically. Unless they were by a well known author. Inversely, I weeded books that had been checked out multiple times by the same patron. Some librarians may scoff at this, but my thoughts were "there are so many other good books, why reread multiple times?" Also I discarded with a mind towards what I wanted to replace them with. For all its faults, Halifax County-South Boston Public Libraries was progressive and generous in their book purchases. I knew I could buy what I wanted to potentially steer people towards
Why I Weeded
Out large print circulation had stagnated. I saw this, rightly or wrongly, as a problem with the collection. Our large print readers would comb the NEW section, grab what was there, and then head back to the same old chestnuts they had read over and over. Seeing this, I saw the opportunity to get new books in front of them. The after all were checking the NEW section before going to the worn copies they were most familiar. If I could get them enough new material, and eliminate they safety net, in theory circulation would increase. Or at the very least diversify since I had not pruned the branches that shown potential.
Ultimately, I weeded what I weeded for the sake of that population of our patronage. For so long, at least the records showed, they had been reading and rereading the same, old, tired novels without much change. Westerns with covers poorly illustrated from movie posters. Romance with terrible trouped plots. Mysteries that were solvable from page one. So, I decided to spice it up. For replacements, I qued up best sellers and books for current reading lists. I replaced the terrible books with newer, more modern read-a-likes. The old horrible covers were culled from the herd and new bucks were on their way to replace.
Some librarians would turn their noses up to such an aggressive approach. Trying to dictate what people read isn't part of our job, I know, but it is our job to give people the chance to try something new. We owe it to our patrons to bring in new, exciting books that if they surpass what we had on the shelves, they do so. Just because readers of large print have to read large print doesn't mean they are relegated to second rate books. Or they don't deserve to only be exposed to the authors who have their books printed in large print. This was my over arching reason for weeding and churning over our large print collection. It's a neglected corner of many libraries and that shouldn't be the case.
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