Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Gardening in the library

Did you know?: when librarians get rid of superceded, out of date stuff from the collection, it's called "weeding", and that's what I've been doing in the reference collection these last couple of days before I go on leave.

This is a much dreaded task but can be very satisfying and even entertaining once you get stuck into it. First hurdle is to find a spare trolley (hot property in library circles) which you can then trundle out into the collection and hope that no students are gathered within shhhhh-distance of the targeted Dewey numbers. Wouldn't want them to think we're spying on them. It's always a good idea to dress appropriately, clothing that doesn't show all the dust and dirt (uh oh, there's that old dust problem again). Then there are the gems you inevitably find, such as the riveting All India Fax Directory of 1992. And one can always hope to find a cataloguing error to gleefully bring to the attention of cataloguing staff. Not much chance of that though, our cataloguing division is pretty on the ball.

At the end of this gardening stint there should be a bit more room in the collection, although students will continue to ignore the print collection anyway and look for anything online (don't even mention Wikipedia). And sure enough, as soon as an item has gone into storage, someone will come to the information desk and ask to see that item.

7 comments:

Sharon said...

V - it reminds me of a similar process we do at the bookshop - that is weed out old titles... But the same as you - as soon as we send then back - someone wants them!!!! Thankyou for visiting my blog...

Stuart said...

Any good gardening books?

Val said...

Re gardening books: yes, there are some good ones on Japanese gardening as well as on gardening in general. There are some more technical books which would probably appeal more to you, Stuart. I hope your local library is well stocked. Don't feel shy about requesting them to buy books, there's probably even an online form that you can use to submit suggestions.

Stuart said...

That's a great suggestion Val. I'll do that.

Val said...

Ah, so satisfying: today I finished up the first batch of weeding, ran off the catalogue records for each one and wheeled the nicely laden trolley down to the lift and on to cataloguing. Felt like a nurse wheeling around a patient.

Val said...

"as soon as an item has gone into storage, someone will come to the information desk and ask to see that item" Isnt that the First Law of Librarianship?" I am just back from a week's holiday with an old girlfriend, also a librarian - we me at Library School! I heard a new word for it the other day "purging", it won't replace "weeding"! Enjoy your holidays!

Val said...

"Purging"? Sounds rather unsavory to me. No, I can't see it take over from "weeding" either.

Holidays going fine so far, Val. I hope to read a summary on your blog soon.