Culling and Removing Resources (restarting our library)

Hello Everyone! I joined the network this week and am thoroughly enjoying reading through the questions and posts. I have some experience with small church libraries - restarting them after first culling them, then adding the Dewey system and finally, relocating the library.

All resources have been gone through (3 day process, 2-3 people, just over 2000 resources listed on the computer). We pulled out items we felt should be removed. My system was to check the copyright and anything over 20 years was checked on amazon.com to see if there was a newer printing. If "yes" then I wrote in pencil "reprinted and the date" and it went back on the shelves. All of the ones that didn't make that grade have been pulled out for the associate pastor (in charge of the library)to go through. I would say there are about 1/4 of the books for him to view - he looked through the first 1/2 of our pile and said they were all good to be removed, so that gives you an idea on the effectiveness of this method for removal.

The resources were already listed in ResourceMate 3.0. I've never used it before and am trying to figure it out. I don't want to start from scratch (although wonder if that might be easier and just use Excel as I did previously). Books are sometimes in more than one category and I think it's difficult to locate items/narrower topics.

My questions are about removing resources:

1. Do I need to keep the bar code currently on the resource that is being removed? (we have NO budget for the library). Is this possible/needed? Can I reuse them on another book?

2. Do I need to remove the card pocket? or the church name on the resource before being donated or tossed?

Or can I just keep it simple and give away all resources AS IS?

3. When I remove the title from ResourceMate (haven't figured out how to do this yet), does it still show that we used to own it? or is it completely deleted? Maybe it doesn't matter. (I used to use a spreadsheet and just created another column for "REMOVED" or "LOST" items.)

If you have any thoughts on the ResourceMate program, such as whether I should continue using it or just start from scratch on Excel, I would greatly appreciate it. It seems like a lot of work to start from scratch. I don't think we will be using the scanner to sign out books (unless the library got bigger or was in high use) - I'd prefer the self-help method, so was going to use the program more simply as an inventory list and for printing up the cards/spine labels, etc.

Thank you for your input!

Rachel

Hi, Rachel. I am not especially “tech savvy”, but have used Resource Mate with my library for several years and like using it especially for circulation. I do make available a self-checkout sheet for patrons when the library is unstaffed and add the information to my system at a later time.
Congratulations on the work you have done so quickly thus far in weeding your collection and revitalizing your library! Weeding is an important task in order to keep your collection fresh, attractive, and relevant.
1. Regarding barcodes, I do remove them carefully from my weeded items and reuse them in order to save money! I have been able to reuse most of them successfully with no issues.
2. My older weeded items do have pockets which I sometimes remove if they come out easily. Otherwise, I leave them intact and mark them as “withdrawn”. If the library name is stamped in the book elsewhere I also write “withdrawn” above the stamp.
3. When I withdraw items from my collection or when items are lost, I simply delete them from the Resource Mate system. You could probably do it differently and have the status show up in your catalog as “withdrawn” or “removed” or “lost”. There may be advantages to leaving them in your system such as for circulation stats.

Replies

Janice Devers July 19, 2018 14:33

Hi, Rachel. I am not especially “tech savvy”, but have used Resource Mate with my library for several years and like using it especially for circulation. I do make available a self-checkout sheet for patrons when the library is unstaffed and add the information to my system at a later time.
Congratulations on the work you have done so quickly thus far in weeding your collection and revitalizing your library! Weeding is an important task in order to keep your collection fresh, attractive, and relevant.
1. Regarding barcodes, I do remove them carefully from my weeded items and reuse them in order to save money! I have been able to reuse most of them successfully with no issues.
2. My older weeded items do have pockets which I sometimes remove if they come out easily. Otherwise, I leave them intact and mark them as “withdrawn”. If the library name is stamped in the book elsewhere I also write “withdrawn” above the stamp.
3. When I withdraw items from my collection or when items are lost, I simply delete them from the Resource Mate system. You could probably do it differently and have the status show up in your catalog as “withdrawn” or “removed” or “lost”. There may be advantages to leaving them in your system such as for circulation stats.

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