We weeded hundreds of books from our collection this year. We removed a lot of reference books, books that haven't been checked out in a decade (or so), books that aren't relevant anymore. It was a slow process, because we took all year to do it, only weeding when we had time - and space for the weeded books.
What do you do with your weeded books? At ALA in Anaheim last summer, I found out about Better World Books. From their site: "Better World Books offers a no cost program to help you manage your discarded and donated books. We make the most of your books by selling them on over 18 online-marketplaces and sharing the proceeds with you and one of our nonprofit literacy programs. "
It takes time, but there is something very satisfying about sending discarded books to BWB to be either sold or recycled. Each book, after being weeded from our catalog and OCLC, had to be pre-screened through the BWB portal. If the book was accepted it went in one box, rejected books went in another. Sometimes students helped us with the project, but one of our librarians ended up doing the bulk of the work. By the end of next week, we will have sent approximately 35 boxes of books to BWB. They supply the boxes, they pay for the UPS shipping. They don't make us remove the library book pockets, barcodes, etc. We have received just a little money back, but just knowing the books won't be in a landfill gave us reason enough to use BWB this year.
The rejected books went to Goodwill. Where do you send your weeded books?
Better World Books is also a great place to buy used books. Read about how they are even doing well in this economy.
