Items are removed from the collection for a variety of reasons.  All withdrawn items have a pink “withdrawal” slip attached giving the reason for the item is being removed from the collection.   We make every effort to follow best practices in all of our decisions.*

Condition:  Items that are too damaged to circulate are removed from the collection.  (e.g.the book with large coffee stains, the DVD scratched from dog chewing…)  We often replace items which are removed because of damage.

Quality/Age of Information:  Items that are outdated or no longer provide accurate information are removed from the collection.  (e.g. medical books that are more than 5 years old, science items that are no longer accurate…)  We attempt to purchase up-to-date materials on the same topics that are removed.

Duplicate copies:  When items are new and popular, we often purchase multiple copies.  Over time, these items become less popular and we do not need as many copies.  We do have some space in our basement annex to store extra copies.  We only keep as many copies as we think will be used by our patrons.  We remove excess copies from the collection.

Lack of Interest:  When items stop being of interest to our community, we remove them from the collection.  We are removing most adult nonfiction items (with the exceptions of some local and collectible materials) that have not checked-out in the past 5 years. We are removing most fiction items that have not checked-out in the past 6 years. We are removing most Young Adult items that have not checked-out in the past 5 years.  With Juvenile titles, we are removing items that have not checked-out in the past 3 to 6 years depending on the type of item (picture books, easy readers, chapter books, audiovisuals…).

*http://www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/weeding