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Media Center spends time weeding through the books
At the end of every year, books no longer desired by the Gull Lake Library are given to students, or teachers free of charge. This is through a process called weeding, as media specialist Karen McConnell explains.
“When we weed, we go through the digital database of books students use to frequently find books relating to their topic. We sort through the books by dates last checked out,” she said.
When weeding, librarians also make sure to note whether the information is still relevant to Gull Lake students.
“When books are about social standings or contain viewpoints that are a few years old, we frequently weed them after a year or two since times change quickly, and points do also,” McConnell said.
Along with social viewpoints being frequently updated, the young-adult fiction section is among the most popular to be weeded.
“We try our best to keep books fresh and new for our students, to keep things interesting,” McConnell said. “At the end of last year we had a lot of books to weed through, since we had not done any weeding since the move from the old high school. “
Books are open to students any time of the year behind the check out desk, but weeding is finished usually at the end of each school year. Since iPads are now in use, Gull Lake is working on expanding their digital libraries. The pickings for this year will range from art history to short fiction stories.
by Alana Fletcher
Mr. Kazuaki
October 24, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Excellent article; it’s really interesting to learn more about libraries and how they function at Gull Lake High School.
It’ll be nice to see what new additions they make to the collection in this process.
Hfhfhfkakje d
October 24, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Don’t you think the middle school does the same thing?
Intelligent Individual
October 24, 2012 at 4:15 pm
“God, This terrible” Wow are you a caveman?
Concerned Individual
October 23, 2012 at 11:36 am
God, this terrible. You should never get rid of books, no wonder The middle school has more.
Alana Fletcher
October 24, 2012 at 6:08 pm
Hello concerned Individual! I hope I can help wash some of those concerns away. All books that weeded are not gotten rid of, they are either given to teachers as additional learning sources in their classrooms, or to students and then replaced; as stated in the article. Many books that are weeded have out dated information, and once they are “weeded” out from the library, are replaced with newer editions. Unfortunately, some books are discarded due to poor conditions. Information in those books could not be read due to the damages, and like the other books, they are then replaced.
I would also like to say that many times the high school gives weeded books to the middle school, which contain subject matter which would be interesting and more applicable to the grade levels there; which well may be why the Middle School has more. In turn, the Middle School also shares weeded books with information that is more interesting to high school students.
The Middle School, like any other library, also weeds through their books. The quantity of books does not matter, but rather the quality, and applicability of the text to the students. Thank you very much for your feedback.