Professional Development and Continuing Education

Weeding Criteria

• C.R.E.W. Method Manual revised and updated by Jeanette Larson, Texas State Library and Archives Commission, 2012 
• Keep Your Library Collection Smelling F.R.E.S.H. from a library media specialist

Special Considerations by Collection or Library Type 

• Public Libraries

  • Core Collections from H.W. Wilson
  • Check with experts like Healthnet or law librarians

• School Libraries

  • Collection Maintenance & Weeding at Eduscapes.com
  • Weeding Your School Library Collection, a video from the National Library of New Zealand
  • Winning at Weeding from School Library Journal, to get teachers on board

• Academic Libraries

  • Reed Library, SUNY Fredonia, with discipline-specific criteria for deselection in LC Call Number range G-JZ
  • Ivy Tech Community College Libraries, Central Indiana, Weeding Criteria
  • University of New Mexico Libraries in Albuquerque, “Collaboration across an Academic Library to Revive an Orphaned Collection” with lots of info about weeding in the Rs
  • University of the Fraser Valley Library, “Planning Collections in the UFV Library” with a section on weeding and list of works cited in each section

• Children's/YA

  • Inclusive Collections from the CT State Library

• Fiction (YA)

  • Illinois Library System's YA blog

• Fiction (Adult)

  • Tackling Fiction by Rebecca Vnuk, Booklist Online, May 2014
  • Fiction Core Collection by H. W. Wilson

• Graphic Novels

  • Good Comics for Kids blog entry on weeding, from SLJ
  • Notes from the Field: Weeding Graphic Novels, from Booklist
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox blog entry on updating a graphic novel and manga collection, from SLJ

• Audiovisual Collections

  • Notable Videos List from ALA 

• Digital Collections

  • C.R.E.W. Addendum on E-Books

• Old/Rare Books

  • Your Old Books lists criteria for determining if a book is valuable
  • ViaLibri - a meta search engine that checks multiple used book sites
  • EBay, Book Finder

• Used Book websites such as: ABEbooks, Alibris, Amazon, etc.
• Resellers such as: Better World Books or Discover Books
• Combo resell/recycle: Baker & Taylor Sustainable Shelves Program
• Donate:
  • Find an international program that accepts book donations
  • Duplicates Exchange Union from ALCTS
  • New Haven Reads
  • Wonderland Booksavers (CT)
  • Darien Book Aid Plan
  • American Friends of Kenya (Norwich, CT)
  • Read-to-Grow (Branford, CT)
  • ReRead Books (Cheshire, CT)
  • Operation Paperback
  • Book Club Share (national) - good for multi-copy discussion sets
• Recycling - http://search.earth911.com/
• Green weeding
• Book-Based Making webinar

Online Weeding Courses / Videos

• Niche Academy courses on Weeding and Collection Management
• Weeding the Library Collection course from LibraryU hosted by WebJunction
• Weeding Course from Alternative Basic Library Education (ABLE)  
• Weeding Your Library Collection recorded webinar from NCompass Live at the Nebraska Library Commission

Articles / Blogs / Resources

• When Weeding Books, Librarians Are Attending to Inclusion and Diversity, SLJ Survey Shows by Melanie Kletter in SLJ, Jun 06, 2021
• Weeding Without Worry, by Rebecca Vnuk in American Libraries, May 2, 2016
• I Can’t Believe You’re Throwing Out Books! from librarian Julie Goldberg, May 2011 
• Books Are Not Sacred Objects, by Rebecca Joines Schinsky on BookRiot, August 20, 2012
• Why We Weed: A Quickish Look at Librarians' Seemingly Most Un-Librarian Task from the University of Alabama Salmon Library 
• Weeding in Libraries: A Partial Index to What's Out There from Havana Public Library District (IL) 
• Weeding Library Collections: A Selected Annotated Bibliography for Library Collection Evaluation from ALA
• Weeding and Deselection Bibliography from OCLC