For many librarians, it is the love of books and reading that was the draw to the career of librarian. But there is a word that strikes fear into books and library materials and to the librarians who must carry out this word's directive. The word? Weed(ing). The librarian uses many criteria to weed a collection and some of those criteria are age, last time it was used or checked out, quality of information, condition of the material, and more. Weeding has been on my mind in my library lately. Especially every time I walk into my back issue magazine room of my high school library. This room has several shelves filled with 39 different magazines many dating back to 1995. It is time to move some issues out. This isn't quite as painful as throwing away books because many times teachers will give these magazines a second life in the classroom. They are used for the analysis of advertisement, writing quality, study of photographs/editorial cartoons, editorials, or simply to cut out pictures for projects.
Books are another story. I hate to throw away a book. I don't know why exactly it is so hard, but I have trouble even tossing a book in which I have absolutely no interest. But even though it is hard to say goodbye, I will be saying farewell to many books over the next two years.
I will save the lament for tossing the old filmstrips, 16mm film, overheads, etc. for another day.
Nice picture. I have such great memories of the open road. I will never understand the multi-millionaire who can't quit working, see and serve the world.
ReplyDeleteI guess you could always donate them to Goodwill. Maybe SOMEONE out there could get some use out of some of them.
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