Sometimes You CAN Judge a Book by Its Cover

We've all heard the adage that you can't do such a thing but I've been weeding several libraries managed by others the last couple of weeks.  This week it was time to turn a critical eye on the collection in one of my libraries.  Believe me, I already knew there were some awful books that should go after seeing the collection last year.  Since I started in the middle of the year and worked without supervision or much direction until the very end of the year (when I was just keeping my head above water before surgery) I didn't know what kind of latitude I had with regard to deciding when a book should go.  Obvious cases like irreparable damage, mold, waterlogged pages, or missing pages were no-brainers.  I was more reluctant about the books which were in generally acceptable shape but were either obviously dated (a book about the worldwide web from 1997, anyone?) or languishing on the shelves for decades.

The new supervisor gave very clear guidelines and warned the principals they'd be seeing significant piles of books removed from shelves.  She said if we removed the books dictated by her standards the collection that remained would look brighter and more inviting.  She was right.  I dispensed with 165 books in the non-fiction collection alone.  That was a very cursory weeding wherein all I did was pick out the ones that looked ancient and worn.  Were I to actually go through book by book and check the copyright or edition dates I could probably remove nearly that number again.  As it is, 88 of the books I did delete are older than I am.  Ladies and gentlemen, pause to read that sentence again.  I was born during the Johnson Administration.  That's how long some of these books have been collecting dust...and that's no exaggeration, I checked the circulation stats on every book I deleted.  Some of them had no record of leaving the library in ten years or more.  None had left the library in at least 5 years.

Allow me to share some of the more....fascinating....examples of library weeds.

This book actually was not old or damaged.  It also had never been checked out.  Call me crazy but I don't see many kindergarten through 5th grade students having a pressing need to research such technicalities as what to do when "a serve that has landed in the proper court bounces and strikes a Line Umpire. The receiver asks that a let be called on the ground that the receiver was hindered in playing the ball because it struck the Line Umpire," as outlined on page 153 in the Line Umpire regulations.  It's a bit absurd that this takes up shelf space when the kids are begging for high interest books about their favorite sports teams and athletes, of which we have only twenty year old books about baseball teams.  No football, no basketball, no hockey.  And don't start me on Mary Lou Retton and the New Gymnasts.  New?  Really?  I'm betting a couple of the athletes in that book have new knees by now.

Here we have a couple of books from the entertainment section.  Electronic Games featuring a cover shot of Space Invaders.  I can recall being in Junior High and playing Pong as I longed to have an Atari system on which to play Space Invaders.  I can't imagine a single student in my school who would find that even remotely entertaining when they can grab mom's or dad's iPhone to play Angry Birds.  And the Battlestar Gallactica...yeah, that's not from the revival.  It's from the original series back in the early 80s.  I'm zapping both books.

Here's an enriching set of biographies. Sly Stallone is not only not a sought after biography but the book had several pages stuck together by some unidentifiable substance.  Maybe Rocky spilled his raw eggs.  The Nixon biography was written during his first administration.  Seriously, pre-Watergate?  The really shocking part of this book being in the library is that around a decade ago when circulation was automated by the inclusion of barcode labels, someone held this book in his or her hands, looked at it, and thought, "Yeah, this is a good book to keep around."  This should  have been weeded back in the 70s in favor of a book including his second term.  If not then, certainly a new one should have been acquired after the man died.  Finally, we have OJ Simpson.  No, just no....children, we will not be reading something presenting this character as a great man.





One might think an arts and crafts book would be less problematic because it's just about creativity.  Creating with Burlap though?  Oh yeah, there's a craft I am sure the kids will be excited about.  I can just see some little kid running home and begging mom to go buy burlap for fun.  Nothing gets the creative juices flowing like itchy brown fabric.

And last but certainly not least I have these two anachronistic presentations.  I Am the Darker Brother: an anthology of modern poems by Negro Americans and George Washington Carver: Negro Scientist.  Both of these books are older than I am.  Again, shortly after we entered the 21st century someone held these two books in hand and decided they were appropriate for a current elementary school library in the inner city, slapped a barcode on them, and added them to the online catalog.   Now, there may be some excellent poetry in the anthology and GWC is certainly an admirable and noteworthy scientist but I think the terminology used by the authors/editors needs to be reflective of the greatness and not so horrendously dated.  Time for some updated titles dealing with the same content in a more culturally appropriate manner.