Some Weeding Resolutions for 2023
So here is part 2.
For your new year’s resolution, commit to frequent weeding.
Go slow. Weeding is something that is best done in small bites. Don’t load a cart and overwhelm yourself and everyone else. Think about devoting 10-20 minutes a day or limit yourself to 5-10 items at a crack. Take a look at this old post from Holly. If it is a huge project, make a plan.
Be mindful of the intended audience. Is it for teens? or is it for teens back in 1990? Check how it is cataloged. Would it do better shelved elsewhere?
Is this the best medium for this information? Books aren’t always the best choice for certain topics. Would a video or streaming content be better?
Integrate DEI into all aspects of collection management. Does your collection reflect many voices and perspectives? See this post and this post.
Finally, if you have to/want to do something, and just want to phone it in without thinking too much, try the following:
Duplicates and damaged materials. (Caveat: Don’t get caught up in saving books with tape and staff time. This can be a time/money/budget suck).
Move then to the obvious weeds: anything with a date in the title over a few years. (Think travel books, income tax materials, exam prep books, etc).
Even if this is all you are able to do, you will have accomplished more than you think.
Peace, love, and stable library funding for 2023
Mary and Holly
Huh, I must’ve missed the bazooka post at the time. It’s from Paladin Press, which was set up by a government agency as a clearinghouse for declassified materials…and which was flooded with fake crap so that people wouldn’t be able to tell the real secrets apart from the fake. The infamous “How To Kill” is the quintessential Paladin Press BS, a mix of stuff that simply doesn’t work and stuff that is more likely to kill the person using it.
That’s interesting. Maybe the self-explosive potential Flow Coef and I noticed was a deliberately-included error by the government, rendering the bazooka both ineffective and possibly deadly?
Paladin Press was the (Elon Musk’s) Twitter of the 1970s. Paladin stopped filling orders in January 2018.
Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors: a Jury Trial presented evidence that this book was used as a guide by a murderer to kill three people…..Appeals had it’s say on the matter:
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1903&context=lf
People are suing Trump over January 6, 2021. They may win.
How nice to street walk down memory lane.
(Stolen from Strangers with Candy. Dreams on the Rocks [1.3])
Saving the most WTF for last, I see.
Happy New Year to all; let’s hope it doesn’t suck any worse than this year did. (Seriously, that’s as optimistic as I get these days)
I know right? I feel nothing but dread or just plain apathy about what will go wrong next in this world this year. It’s not just the books that are awful, when I’m in bed at night I think every sound or flash of light is from the nukes. When I’m about to go leave my apartment I imagine the viruses out there, waiting for their next victim, ready to attack as soon as I open the door. I have Mean World Syndrome, because the world IS mean, and nobody does a single thing about it.
Time marches on!