“”Something” is not better than nothing if what you have is outdated or inaccurate.”
This appears in Arizona State Library’s online article, which can be found here. This should be every librarian’s motto when weeding. Think about topics such as menopause treatments or cancer treatments. Would you trust information on these topics in a book from 1980? While we don’t usually order books on these topics for the teen section, think about topics we do cover: sex education, space, geography and popular music. Information is constantly changing. Should they use inaccurate books, the information could give them an F on their paper or a big “L”oser sign from their friends.
One of my favorite examples of books needing to be weeded is when I found a book on space exploration from 1955(ish). They showed pictures of what space suits might look like if we landed on the moon. Which we did in 1969.
This is why we need to keep up with changes, especially in science. Good ways to keep aware of changes are: by using RSS feeds for news sites, joining listservs (such as YALSA-Bk or PUBYAC) or sharing what you know with your fellow librarians.
I think this also holds true with books that are falling apart. I would rather have no Harry Potter than a Harry Potter that will disintegrate if I look at it funny. This would be a great time to enable your circulation staff and your pages. In my library, if they see a book that is falling apart and they don’t think it should go out anymore, they put the book on my desk. If its something that is obviously still popular, they fill out a replacement form and delete the book.
Its good to occasionally do a quick walk through of the teen area. If you notice any books that are visibly falling apart, have a couple of replacement forms with you and get rid of the books right away. A good point of reference is if you wouldn’t want to check the book out, teens probably aren’t going to want to check the books out either.
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