Rumble in the Stacks: Library Weeding Elicits Strong Opinions in the Wild

In the campaign to stop or at least give visibility to the scope of the Library's new weeding policy, our former State Librarian highlighted several egregious or ironic discards. Once the story got picked up in the press, librarian twitter surprisingly had little sympathy. Although outside commentary was missing key local facts, and may have assumed Salem did no weeding previously, it also revealed a more lively internal debate among librarians about the scope and purpose of a collection.

The current effort at the Library had seemed obviously overzealous and that once that saw the light, on it a professional consensus would obviously emerge that it was prudent to throttle it back significantly. We should remember they eliminated the Reference Desk also. How was there going to be any debate? It seemed like a slam-dunk.

But out-of-state, this elicited contempt!

But no! An out-of-state librarian who was probably just reading the headline, and knows nothing of local conditions, but later did read more, yelled back "YOUR PUBLIC LIBRARY IS NOT AN ARCHIVE OR WAREHOUSE FOR BOOKS," and her response seemed to be endorsed by several other librarians, who piled on with surprising scorn. They were not very polite about it, and ridiculed anyone who might say "slow down." This is fascinating! To them, it was equally obvious that we should be throwing out books, left and right; it is only a benighted antiquarianism, or some such stupidity, that argued for restraint and a more careful weeding and retention plan. Surely our stacks are crowded and need thinning! Surely we are clinging to useless things!

This was a surprise to see.

In any case, the manual for the method our City Librarian identified she is using is available online, and contrary to the confidence of those outsiders, it suggests there might be a mismatch in its application.

The CREW system is for
"smaller community libraries and branches"
CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries (2012)

The CREW system and its manual "is designed for use primarily by librarians and staff in smaller community libraries and branches of larger systems."

Now, Salem isn't exactly a big city, but since we do not have a large state or research university here, with its own large library, it does not seem right to count the Salem Public Library as a "smaller community library." Ours isn't a branch, either. It's the central library and flagship for the Chemeketa Cooperative Regional Library Service. Or at least it should be, anyway.

"very few books...should be retained if not used"
CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries (2012)

On this reading, the certainty with which the CREW system argues "very few books...should be retained if not used by library patrons" seems misplaced for the downtown library - as distinct from the West Salem branch, for example.

Still, any library that committed to this system would also make a strong institutional commitment to recency bias and presentism. If a library is in some sense a guardian of knowledge and culture, that entails a certain conservation and conservatism with regard to the past, even if unpopular and unused. That's not necessarily in line with norms in business, customer service, or efficiency. But maybe there's a new Taylorism and presentism in Library Science. All of this is very interesting, and the twitter debate and scorn suggests a something of a generational shift in librarian norms and expectations.

"retain all books on the history...of the city"
CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries (2012)

Fortunately, the CREW system does recognize the importance of public libraries for local history, and it argues for keeping all local history, geography, directories, genealogy, and books from "most" local authors. So that would be a strong statement to leave the Hugh Morrow Collection untouched and perhaps even to expand it.

Additionally, the fact that the Reference Desk has been eliminated and an unknown number of Reference Librarians downskilled to Library Assistants should also get more visibility, and the staffing levels corresponding to the book purge may also need revision.

From here, it seems like it was reasonable for the new City Librarian to want to formalize a better weeding system, but it is also likely she erred with an overzealous application that weeded too much. It should be possible to have a new and improved policy for regular weeding, to create better systems, but also to be more generous with retaining classic kinds of works, even when unpopular and rarely circulating.

A new FB page and clearing house for information, "Save Our Books," says

The Salem Public Library Library Advisory Board will hold their regular monthly meeting on January 9th at 5:30 in the Anderson Room at the Library. This will be a time for citizens who are concerned about the mass removal of books to share their concerns with the Library Advisory Board. Please come and tell the Board that there are no good reasons to remove thousands of books from the library core collection. The collection has been well maintained and the books are needed to continue to meet the educational and informational needs of Salem citizens. Ask that the books that have been removed be returned to the shelves and that the book removal process come to an end.

Postscript

Over at Save Our Books they've got data on the last five years of weeding. It's substantial, and certainly counters any suggestion that the Library was at fault in failing to weed. Discards routinely exceed additions.

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