How do librarians purge books? I know this has been discussed before, but as newer books are becoming increasingly "edgy," should we be keeping some of the older "tried & true" and if so, what criteria could we use to make our decisions?
Denise Roberts
Replies
I often use an acronym from the CREW method by the Texas State Archives: MUSTIE
Misleading, Ugly, Superseded, Trivial, Irrelevant, or may be Elsewhere
If the information has changed, it's misleading. (For example, think about Pluto no longer being considered a planet.) If the book is damaged beyond repair or has yellowws pages, it's ugly. If the information has been superseded, you don't need it. If it is about a popular topic at one time but is not any longer, it may be considered trivial. A book can also be irrelevant to your library. This is where knowing your mission is important. Your space is physically limited, so you must ask yourself if the book is relevant to your library. In other words, does it support your mission. Then finally, how easy is it for your to find this information elsewhere? Is it easily accessible online, for example.
Hope this helps.
Rhonda
I'm doing purging also; Already have given major work to my son, a minister. I'm now purging what's left of those directly related to a religious topic.
I'm a seminary drop-out from 1960, studied old testament under Jewish professor, James Sanders, the Dead Sea Scolls guru, at a Baptist Seminary. So my collection is somewhat not ordinary.
I'm hoping other church libraries could use these. I stil have many; for want of a better name, "spiritual" books.
I'm not sure I want to unload these; part of my research for a "Music Philosophy" effort which includes existential and aesthetics in arts...but closely related to the religious experience. Moments in Time--when we experience the hidden wonders of the universe. Often called the "mountain top:" experience. One I would recommend, if you don't have it, is Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden.
I may have already mentioned weeding of older books, but here is some criteria:
Don't take out old books because they are old; check on the authors and keep the well-known authors. Also check the bibliographies in places like the old "readers advisor". Most of those titles and authors will be keepers, and the subjects represented.
Keep the "how to" books. Even those who say they only need the bible, still need these.
Please explain the "readers advisor".
We are purging as well, but have not started on the bibliographies section yet. But we know that we must reduce the size of this collection.
In that section there are many older books with brown pages that seem outdated at first glance.
How do we make wise decisions about what to pull and what to keep? Criteria?
Readers advisory in the simplest sense is connecting the reader to the right book. Making a bibliography of books on a certain topic is an easy way to do this. The online database NoveList is one way that this can be done.
I believe there should be an explanation of the Readers Advisor, a massive bibliography, annotated, a six volume set of bibliographies which many libraries have. It includes a religious section and it is quite different from another online work with the same name. Here is the link to the RR Bowker books. Here is one AI expanation.
Here’s a short, plain explanation of how The Reader’s Adviser (14th ed., R. R. Bowker; 6 vols.; ISBN 0-8352-3320-0) is organized, along with its hierarchy. There are essays preceding each section and sub sections.
Entries and annotations (the leaf level). The lowest level is the individual annotated entry (book or work). These entries are the items you would recommend to readers — they usually include concise content/plot notes, intended audience/readability, and occasionally cross-references to related subtopics or alternate titles.Volume 6 = the index/back-of-set tools. The final volume collects comprehensive indexes (author and title lookups, publisher listings, subject headings) so you can find specific works or jump from an index hit back into the appropriate volume/section. (publiclibrariesonline.org)
Hierarchy= “Volume → Section: ‘Social Sciences’ → Topic: ‘Criminology’ → Subtopic: ‘Juvenile Delinquency’ → Entries (annotated)”.
While this work is OP and is purported to be replaced by online systems; which I'm sure updated and current with many new resources. And for advising what to read in what category, there are several databases that help with that, but they don't bring everything together like the 6 vol. set does. You can find the online services listed here:
https://bookriot.com/readers-advisory-tools/
This Bowker work would be especially good for checking on weeding old and older works; what to discard and what to save. The subject and category annotations tell you why.
thank you for that complete explanation! I'm learning something new every day!