D. Parker's Need to Weed
FRIT 7332 Eval and Weeding SMORE
Religion 200-239
I chose this section to weed due to age and underuse of the materials. There were only four books in this section, three of which had copyright ten years or older and had never been checked out.
Evaluation Data
According to Woolls and Weeks (2014, p. 138), "A smaller more attractive collection of relevant, up-to-date materials is more important important to students and teachers than a large collection of mostly useless materials that will be virtually ignored." Granted, this is a small section of the Media Center, but like larger sections, it too must be weeded to provide the most up-to-date and attractive selections for students.
Curricular Needs
Bible stories are not specifically mentioned in CCGPS for elementary school, however mythology is. This is justification both for keeping the mythology title (though it has not been checked out) and weeding the other two titles that have not been checked out in the 200-239 section.
Weeded Items
Bible Lands is ten years old and never been checked out. The Miracles of Jesus is twenty-eight years old and has never been checked out. The fact that the Bible and Christianity are not mentioned explicitly in CCGPS means that there is not an immediate curricular need for these titles in the Media Center. These reasons combined make these titles logical candidates for weeding.
Disposal
The only guidelines for disposal of weeded materials provided in the county Media Handbook deal with equipment and discards that must be approved by RESA. However, our school policy is to remove all identifying information from the discards and first offer discarded books to teachers on a first come, first served basis for a week. Any remaining materials are donated to Goodwill. It is currently up for discussion whether we might offer future discards to students as well as teachers.