Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Hyattsville, Maryland: Another Weeding Tempest

19 locations share an online catalog

Link to August 19 Washington Post article, "Plans to cut Hyattsville library's collection draw protests".

Excerpt: Concerned patrons have asked the Prince George's County library system to reconsider plans to reduce the collection of the Hyattsville branch by more than 60,000 items.

Librarians have been working for more than a month to scale down the collection from about 226,000 items to about 160,000. The building was initially designed to hold 200,000.

The process, known as "weeding," removes books that are outdated, in poor condition or unpopular -- usually meaning they haven't been checked out in two or more years. One reason for the reduction is a planned renovation and expansion of the branch expected to begin in 2012, said library director Kathleen Teaze. Planning money for the renovation is in the county's fiscal 2011 budget, Teaze said
.

Retiring Guy thinks some weeding is probably in order.
Source:  Maryland Public Library Statistics (2008)

2 comments:

Lara said...

Can you explain what the turnover rate means? Are there industry standards, so to speak?

I tend to come come down on the side of weeding in this dispute, which I've been following fairly closely. But I hadn't seen the Maryland and county statistics you cite and am wondering how they compare to other places.

Lara said...

I tend to come down on the side of weeding in this dispute, which I've been following fairly closely. But I'm not familiar with the Maryland/county library statistics you cite. What does the turnover rate mean? How does it help the case for weeding.