LIBRARY WEEDING PRACTICES

Public Relations Issues in Regards to Weeding as Reported in the Literature   

The literature on the topic of weeding seems to indicate that for the most part, public relations problems connected to the process most often arise when collection review has been ignored and allowed to become an enormous project rather than proceeding on an ongoing basis.  Within those instances, there is usually one or more additional mitigating factors.  As Kimberly pointed out in class discussion, sometimes it is that a library directors did not take the time to hear and respond to the complaint of a user or users, forcing them to go to the press or to another authority if they are strongly concerned.  Other times it is that a library just does not feel it can realistically follow disposal procedures instituted by governing bodies.  In other cases, it just seems to be stubbornness or stupidity on the part of library directors.  Finally, it sometimes appears that internal politics is playing a part, and the parties involved forget to pay attention to the fact that their actions may draw attention from outside the library, or even that library staff may see to it that it comes to the attention of outsiders, if they feel it will suit their purposes.  .

The latter seems to be the instance in the case of the 2001 Chicago incident reported in two American Libraries articles in October and November of that year.  The tactics seem pretty Gestapo: the branch library director is removed, and while the assistant director is also gone, crews under the direction of the systems head go into the branch and remove 18,000 volumes.  I am more inclined to believe reports of the branch staff than the public relations line taken by the central library.  Though it may be true that the branch staff had not been aggressive enough in weeding, it seems likely to me that the systems head had other agendas as they suggest, and the branch manager had not been going along with her program.  Even if that is not the case, it is clear that the systems head did not attend to concerns of branch staff in reaction to what was probably a very unusual situation.  On the issue of disposal, it also seems likely that the large majority of the books were indeed being recycled as other library staff reported.

One important thing about this particular case is that it was taken to court.  The judge set a precedent by not allowing an injunction to be filed to stop the weeding.  His decision was that there was no evidence that it caused irreparable harm.  This is important in that it protects the library’s right to proceed with weeding as they see fit, but of course support of both funding bodies and the public who elect them is also of prime importance.

The flap in Philadelphia actually began in early 1997 if not before. A May article in  American Libraries reported that many were upset at the revelation that a large number of books that were being simply trashed.  A follow up article in the June/July issue noted that an agreement had been reached.  Weeded items were to be sorted into seven categories and sent to the central library.  Now as I noted in the opening paragraph, I can see how following this kind of policy might be very burdensome for any system, both in terms of storage issues and of staff time.  However, in this case a solution was found, and still the director did not adhere to the policy.

A December 1998 article in the same journal reported that a flatbed truck full of discarded books was stopped on the way to a recycling center despite the fact that because of previous problems, the system director had agreed that all discards would go to the Greater Philadelphia Book Bank.  I can not imagine why this policy was not followed.  What better way to illustrate the necessities of weeding than by having mountains of books pile up in a Book Bank that nobody wants – with the additional provision that there are avenues through with the ones that are wanted can be redistributed.  It seems an efficient way of making the library’s case.  I can only imagine that this was a case of director stubbornness or stupidity.  That he tried to identify it as communication errors and staff misunderstandings was particularly pathetic.

Statistics that might have been used to make the library’s case appeared in an intervening article in January 1998.  It stated that the Philadelphia Free Library had given away 15,000-20,000 books free to the public according to a June/July 1997 article in American Libraries.  They were still left with 64,000 discards to send to the Greater Philadelphia Book Bank as agreed, where 300,000 were already stored.  The article does not make clear whether the entire 79,000 to 84,000 books were offered to the public or not, but if they were, the library should have definitely underlined the point in this manner:  “As you see, no one wants these books even if they do not have to pay for them.”

Complaints may be brought when the number of volumes is considerably smaller than in the case of  Philadelphia.  A January 1999 article in American Libraries reports a dispute that arose in Georgia over a mere 300 volumes.  It is very likely that the earlier problem in San Francisco may have put the public on alert to look for these problems.  It is also true that certain groups, like Family Friendly Libraries which is mentioned in this article, are always glad to find avenues of pushing their agendas. In this case, at least some of the detractors were suggesting that an anti-conservative bias was evidenced by the items discarded, but most were merely concerned that items bought with tax-payer dollars were being thrown out.  Some suggested that at the very least, they should be donated to nursing homes or shelters, which the branch director pointed out may not even be legal.  What I found most appalling about this particular article is that, from the report, the vice president of the library board did not even try to defend weeding as a necessary process, but instead fed the complaint by stating that she was “grieved and overwhelmed.”

At least this round of complaints about libraries’ disposal practices seems to have started with a “brouhaha” in San Francisco as reported by Will Manley in a December 1996 article in American Libraries.  In this case a new central library was opening and 100,000 books were trucked to the city dump at the same time.  Now Manley suggests, perhaps not seriously, that the solution to the problem is to be more spread out and secretive about the dumping process.  He states that items donated to a Friends of the Library book sale will raise as much controversy.  This actually seems not to be true, and is a major means of dealing with discards in the Seattle area.

Current Practices in the Seattle Area

The King County Library has ongoing FOL book sales in all branches.  It also has two major sales every year.  At the ongoing sales the prices tend to be $1.00 for paperbacks, and $2.00 for hardbacks.  At the larger sale there is a wider range of pricing, but I know that at the end of the day, people are allowed to load up books that are left for $1.00 a bag.  The evidence there belies Manley’s predictions.  I have never seen any media coverage of these sales that put them in a negative light.

The Seattle Public Library also has two major FOL sales, but as far as I know only has an ongoing sale at the central branch, where there is a Friends of the Library store.  According to a source in this library system the only thing that is actually thrown out at SPL are books that are so damaged as to be unreadable or those in which the information is erroneous because it is outdated.  Everything else filters through the Friends of the Library and the bulk of it is stored in non-library locations.  To me this seems a way of passing the buck to some extent, but it is true it seems to keep library weeding a non-issue as far as the public is concerned and the library is relieved of storage problems.  It is also true that all decisions and all handling of the books, whether they are passed on to another agency, sold individually or in lots, or recycled is done by volunteers which relieves SPL of personnel cost issues.   One other program that exists at least my neighborhood branch, is a magazine exchange.  Although I see no evidence that the branch takes advantage of this avenue of offering its discards to the public, I think that they could so I have utilized it in my plan below.

Localized Disposal Plan For Public Libraries

In Managing and Analyzing Your Collection: A Practical Guide for Small Libraries and Media Centers by Carol A. Doll and Pamela Barron they offer a list of ways to dispose of items.  The ones I like best are the ones they included for comic relief (I think):  place a few in each wastebasket every day, take them to another community’s dump, or box them and send them to the superintendent.  The rest of the suggestions fall into the categories of

·        pass it on to another part of the same institution

·         pass it on to another public agency in the same community

·         pass it on to another library

·        sell it to another agency or the public

·        give it away free

·        pass it to an organization like the Friends of the Library to deal with

·        sell it by lot to an out of print dealer or recycling company

·        recycle it with no remuneration

·        dump it

In my “real life” plan, I have used the experiences of the libraries in my community to devise a plan that will avoid public relations problems by heavily using the Friends of the Library organization. Also in this regard, weeding would definitely by a regularly scheduled duty.  Although I would like to see items distributed to other libraries that might want them, I feel that as cooperation currently exists, efforts to do so as would be too costly in terms of time spent creating lists, packing to ship, etc. etc.  If the Friends of the Library group could do some of that, it would be all to the good, but certainly not required of them by any agreement.  I would ask that they do their best to create some revenue from the discards.  I have chosen to take the attitude that my library’s primary objective is to provide responsible stewardship of the public funds that it is given.  This includes spending as little as possible on personnel to handle discards produced by the process of weeding.  After all, personnel costs take up a great deal of any library budget.

This stewardship would ideally include creating a positive affect on the acquisition budget by selling many items, but this too would be too expensive in my opinion, and so would be left to the FOL organization.  So the primary questions I would ask in regards to disposal would be:

·        Is it likely that anyone in my library system can use this item?

·        Might this item be of use to someone?  If so it would go to the Friends of the Library to handle.

·        If the item is one that is unlikely to be of use to anyone, the only question remaining would be: Is it recyclable?

Taking Seattle’s practice as a model, the bulk of disposal decisions and process would actually be handled by the volunteer organization to which I passed the discards.  Specific categories would be handled as follows.

·        Duplicates- Given that this means the library is actually interested in keeping at least one copy, then I would assume that other libraries would also be interested.  I would therefore create a list of these items to distribute throughout my system and pass the items to the first library that responds.  Duplicates not claimed would be sent to FOL, although I would perhaps separate them out from other discards, noting that other libraries might be interested in them of FOL had developed a system for distributing them.

·        Unsolicited gifts – If it is immediately apparent that an item is something the library wants or has significant value, it could be added to the system, but in most cases the process of sorting and consideration is too costly.  Realistically, most gifts would be passed directly to the FOL organization.  A few might become uncataloged paperbacks.  See last category.

·        Obsolete books – If books indeed contain information that is erroneous or incomplete because it is dated, I would send it to recycle, trying at least to get a nominal amount from a pulp dealer.

·        Superceded editions – Because these have value to some people even after they are not good enough for the library, I would send them to FOL.  Phone books would be an exception.  Those I would recycle.

·        Books that are infested, dirty, shabby, worn out – I don’t think this is really one category, but for the purpose of this exercise, I will assume that all items are so damaged as to be unacceptable to anyone, even free.  I would use my recycler’s guidelines to decide if an item was clean enough to be recycled.  Those that weren’t would be dumped.

·        Books that have small print, brittle pages, and missing pages – I would check for first editions and things that otherwise might have intrinsic value and dump the rest. 

·        Unused, unneeded volumes of sets – In this case I would store the unused volumes until I was ready to discard the entire set.

·        Periodicals with no indexes – Because this category would be bulky and difficult for the FOL to handle, I would be inclined to set up a magazine exchange if at all possible.  Patrons could bring magazines they wished to recycle, and the library could place non-indexed older issues there as well.  Those that didn’t move in a reasonable time would go directly to recycling.

·        Books not circulated in two years –A book that does not circulate at your library might actually circulate at another.  If I had any thought that another branch in my system could use the volume, or possibly another library, I would treat it as I do duplicates above.  

·        Shabby but usable – FOL for those who are only interested in content.

·        Recently replaced annuals like Thomas Register and PDR – These are items that I think could be of use to libraries who can’t afford to buy them, so I would send them to FOL noted as such. 

·        Paperbacks that have been replaced with hardbacks – Assuming the paperbacks were actually catalogued, I would remove them from the OPAC.  However, I might be inclined to keep a good supply of uncataloged paperbacks on spinner racks for those who prefer the format for browsing or reading.  Some branches of the Seattle Public Library have some paperbacks with a sticker that says “Property of the Seattle Public Library – Please Return it When You Are Finished.”  These books do not go through circulation.  I think it’s a good idea. 

Future National Plan for Coordinated Library Redistribution

I know that in some academic systems it is required that the serials department publish a list of items to be discarded so that other libraries have a chance to expand their collections or obtain missing issues.  I think this is a time consuming practice for the library that seldom does any good.  However, I do think that in these days of automation, a database could be maintained where libraries enter volumes or issues that have disappeared, and items that they would simply like to have but can not afford.  I would picture the entry of items to be a simple download of cataloging data from the library’s own OPAC or another source.  It doesn’t seem that it would be too time consuming for libraries to check their discards against what would be very like a catalog.  If the item was desired there would be a list of libraries requesting it.  Procedures might be to send the item to the first institution on the list, or to the one nearest you.  I would think any per item costs would be just shipping, but libraries that used the system in any capacity would have to contribute to its upkeep.

Some suggest that items could be sold on Half.com.  Although FOL might do this, I think to enter the items into the Half.com system, commenting on condition and the like, would be too time-consuming for library staff.  On the other hand, I think it would be possible to have a system that worked in tandem with the one described in the preceding paragraph.  If a library did not find the item they were discarding in the “library requests catalog,” then the catalog record could be downloaded into a Half.com-like public sales database.  Condition comments could be kept to a minimum.  Anything one needed to know beyond the fact it was a used probably library bound item could be handled by simple point and click categories.  Anyone could purchase the item for the price that the library set plus shipping.  The funds would end up at the discarding library.  Do note that it would be necessary for libraries to accept credit card payment, or at least something like Pay Pal at Ebay.  To reduce staff time spent on this process, most of it could be done by the FOL volunteers.  I would think the whole process would be easier and more productive than the current Friends of the Library sales.