Webinar Participation: The Fine Art of Weeding

I’ve developed a love of weeding in libraries.  Libraries need healthy collections.  Weeding, much like in gardening, helps them accomplish this.  And I’ll admit it’s taken me years to gain an appreciation for this task.  I think working on a mock collection development policy for a hospital library helped raise my awareness.

Keri Cascio presented “Culling Your Collection: The Fine Art of Weeding” through ALCTS.  Cascio is a branch manager for the St. Charles City-County Library District.

She started off with several reasons why librarians should weed collections:

Space – Libraries need shelf space, and even utilizing compact shelving may not solve all the space problems a library has.  Books sitting on shelves also cost money-just sitting there.

Time – Getting rid of unnecessary materials can help streamline shelving processes.  It can also help patrons find the items they need quicker.

Appeal – As much as I like antique books and jewelry, I don’t like “old” or “dirty” books and jewelry.  You know the difference.  One has value and enriches a collection.  It has history.  The other is a piece of junk, sometimes an unsanitary piece of junk.  If you have a bunch of junk in your collection, patrons are going to lose interest.

Reputation – Are you up to date?  Can your patrons find relevant and reliable information?  Or do you still have books listing Pluto as a planet on your shelves?  Textbooks outdated?  Medical and technical texts more than a few years old?  I’ve walked into libraries with out of date testing manuals, out of date technical certification manuals, and out of date medical books.  And I’ve walked right back out.  There is no excuse for that.

Collection Needs – Weeding can help you see what’s missing in your collection, what you have too much of, and what you need to repair/replace.

Collection Strengths and Weaknesses – Weeding places librarians into the thick of the collection.  They gain a familiarity with items they may have never seen.  Librarians also come away from the weeding process knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the collection and possibly how to work with those variables.

Cascio also discussed the Texas State Libraries and Archives Commission CREW method.  CREW stands for Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding.  Check out the link for more info.

Weeding seems, at least to me, to be based on common sense.  Don’t keep irrelevant and outdated titles.  Keep your collection up to date and appropriate for your patron base.  I know it’s difficult to let go, but it’s necessary to maintain a relevant collection.  And, keep in mind that if you can get a title elsewhere (ILL anyone?) why bother keeping it on your shelves, especially if it hasn’t been checked out for years?

Cascio did mention some very important points concerning weeding.  It takes time.  Sometimes, it takes lots and lots of time.  You have to plan.  And starting small is better than not starting at all, especially if your librarians are new to weeding.  Also, make sure your library has policies regarding weeding (on purchases, gifts, etc.).  It saves libraries trouble in the long run.

The webinar closed with some sample policies from various libraries and some options for disposal (sales, recycling, donations, etc.).  All in all it was a good presentation and reinforced my admiration for weeding and the librarians capable of getting this important job done.

Database Reviews!!!

I think I’m gonna start reviewing bibliographic databases on this blog.  It gives me a way to review over the many databases I’ve used in the past and discover new databases for future use.  Any librarian worth her salt needs to be familiar with a variety of databases.  This little task should keep me up to date while I wait for gainful employment.  J

I’m not setting a day every week.  I’m just going to post as I dig through some databases.  My goal is to post once a week on this, but I make no promises.  I’m going to try to vary the subject focus, so I won’t just be posting general or humanities or biology databases. 

This may also be useful for some of my readers not in the realm of library science.  Students at all levels should be familiar with at least a few databases.  Knowing where to look online is important for research efficiency, especially given that a great deal of research is done online nowadays.  You may also learn something you don’t know about the library world.  It could be fun.

This week I’m just going to give some general information regarding bibliographic databases.

Most of the time bibliographic databases are just called databases.  The basic format is just what it sounds like:  A bibliography of articles or other resources located online.  I associate databases with universities and colleges, but your public library is bound to have access to a few (here’s an example from the New York Public Library).  A database is searchable and gives researchers a chance to find citations and interesting information resources.  These databases can also list where the item is located (for instance, if your university owns the item).  Many databases have access to full-text articles.  This wasn’t the case several years back, but given how popular they are, full-text databases are becoming the norm. 

This is awesome for patrons.  As long as you have your institution’s codes, you can access research anywhere you have internet access.  This also makes it easier to access information 24/7.  Having gone through two graduate schools, I can say this kind of access becomes vital to a student’s life.  My last graduate degree was online.  Accessing my university’s libraries would have required a five hour drive.  The ability to access articles and citations (useful for local ILL) made the degree possible.  It’s also nice having the ability to research while in your pajamas.

Databases can be general in that they’ll cover a little bit of everything.  Or they can be subject specific.  Subject specific databases can be broad and cover all the hard sciences or the humanities.  They can also be very specific and just cover fields like nursing or psychology.  There are literally hundreds of databases.  No person is expected to know them all.  At least that’s not the impression I got working on my library science degree (oh, there are databases just for library science). 

Databases are often found as aggregators.  This means multiple databases can be searched simultaneously, using a common search interface.  The search screen (with all the fun search boxes) you’re looking at may just cover one database or it may contain several databases (an aggregator).  Aggregators make it easier for a user to search without having to dig through all the database descriptions to find the “right” one.  This can, however, cause problems.  An aggregator is only as good as the least efficient database.  It’s just like in team sports.  The team is just as good as the weakest player.  Searching in some aggregators can be less fruitful than just searching in a lone database if the aggregator contains a database with inefficient search capabilities.  As far as I know, this is getting worked out.  I’ve not encountered too many problems myself. 

That said, whether using lone databases or aggregators, conducting multiple searches is in a researcher’s best interest.  Too many times I’ve seen students walk away from research with the first handful or articles they find, usually complaining later when they have trouble.  I cannot stress this enough:  Utilize multiple databases if you can, conduct multiple searches using a variety of search terms, and don’t be so lazy as to take the first article you find!  Research is hard work.  You cannot expect good results with a five minute database session.

Ok.  I think I’ve covered enough tonight.  I would also like to point out to my readers that having trouble with databases is normal, especially to new researchers.  Searching these badboys can be overwhelming to new users.  You know what’s the best way through this initial awkwardness and fear?  A librarian!  If you have trouble, a librarian can help you figure out what database to use and how to efficiently search said database.  And many academic libraries offer bibliographic instruction sessions focusing on the use of online databases.  Research is a skill that takes education and practice to master.  Take advantage of what libraries and librarians offer you in this regard.

LIS 623 Course Summary: Information in the Humanities

As usual with graduate school, this course had an uber ton of readings.  I’ll be honest.  When I had a sense of déjà vu out of an article, I’d usually skim it.  The course textbook was neat.  The Humanities:  A Selective Guide to Information Sources, by Ron Blazek and Elizabeth Aversal, was primarily one big annotated bibliography.  The fifth edition was published in 2000, so it is a little outdated.

One of our main projects consisted of updating the textbook.  My group worked on the sections covering Philosophy and Religion, Mythology, & Folklore.  It was fun (yes, I’m a geek).  I updated some of the resources already included and added a few more relevant sources.  Since 9-11-2001, the atheist community has grown and gained more visibility.  Since the textbook had absolutely zero resources pertaining to freethinkers, non-religious folks, and/or atheists, I added a handful of sources on those topics.  The professor informed us she wanted to update the text and had been in contact with the publishers.  However, I’ve yet to hear anything back from her regarding the update.

I suppose the most important knowledge, in addition to the tons of humanities resources, I took away from the course involved the information needs of humanities scholars and students.  Since I have a MA in Literature and I’ve worked in a small academic library, I can attest to the general accuracy of the claims.

As a general rule, Humanities scholars:

·       Work independently, as opposed to more team efforts by scientists (look at article by-lines to see this in action)

·       Like to browse

·       Use a variety of subjects and sources as opposed to other fields (personal experience: I’ve written conference papers requiring the use of sources from literature, history, religion, philosophy and the sciences-all in the same paper)

·       Utilize “chaining” (citation tracking, following works cited of relevant articles in order to find more resources)

·       Utilize technology to a lesser degree than other fields (this is changing with the newer generations of humanities students and scholars)

We also worked through numerous sets of reference questions.  Each set contained ten ready reference and five more complicated reference questions.  The professor forbid the use of Google “on pain of death.”  Each set covered a different subject in the Humanities and gave me lots of reference practice in addition to my library assistant duties at WKCTC.

LIS 608 (Research Course) and LIS 603 (Management Course)

LIS 608 focused on researching in the field of library science.  I think the Annoyed Librarian had a wonderful summary of the research and publication experience in our field.  It can seem oddly simple.  However, this course did cover the details of interviews, observations, surveys, etc.  I actually conducted an observation of a circulation desk at a local academic library.  I discovered I have better observation skills than I realized.  Anyone who’s worked on a graduate degree has taken a research methods course (I even had one for my Lit MA), so I’m not going to bore you with the details. 

The textbook for LIS 608 was The Practice of Social Research, by Babbie.  It’s an awesome book.  Considering it’s a book on research in the social sciences, that is a major compliment.

LIS 603 focused on Management techniques in libraries.  I’ll be honest.  I hated this course.  I only scored a B in this course, mainly because I’d wait until the last possible minute to complete assignments (bad Melissa).  I’m not fond of management theories.  I’m specifically referring to the management theories found in the twentieth century, which is what 603 covered.  I think they paint employees as mindless drones requiring constant manipulation and training (kind of like the training you might attempt on a really stupid dog).  However, I did like the strategic planning segment of the course.  It appealed to my control freak nature.  You should see me plan vacations or moves.  I’m always planning. 

It’s important for libraries to plan, especially in hard economic times.  It provides a framework and keeps everyone focused on the library’s mission.  Yes, planning can get grating, but it’s less annoying than everyone running around like headless chickens later.

LIS 603 also had an interesting textbook.  Library and Information Center Management, by Stueart and Moran, conveyed management theories in a practical and organized way.  It wasn’t my favorite textbook ever (mainly because of the subject material), but it was well organized.