CREWing Children's Materials Juvenile collections are as different from adult collections as children are from adults, and require different considerations for selection and deselection. To begin with, children as patrons often require an adult ‘go-between’ to find what they need for research and pleasure reading. A child browsing through the nonfiction collection may be completely lost unless he or she has been shown, and understands, how to find the materials needed. Children are even less likely than their adult counterparts to note the publication date and double check facts against other sources. They are particularly susceptible to outdated or inaccurate information since they do not always have the knowledge base to distinguish it, assuming that if it's in the library, it must be both true and current. This alone makes it critical to regularly weed outdated material from the collection regardless of how recently it last circulated. Parents often pick up everything on a topic for their child to use at home and children will take a book without considering that the information may be outdated and erroneous. Inexperienced users of the juvenile collections can be easily misled and adult criteria cannot be applied in all cases. For example, an item may have been on the shelf for well over a year, completely ignored and unused, but if a skilled librarian matches the book to the right child, it becomes both useful and valuable to the collection. This is what makes individual guidance, use in story times, displays, and book talks so important for making materials accessible: they are what cause seemingly ‘dead’ collections to spring to life. Many books in the children’s collection continue to be popular for decades but need to be replaced because of wear and tear. The basic guidelines of weeding can be applied to both adult and juvenile collections. Naturally, the person who selects the materials should be the person overseeing the culling of the collection and making the final weeding decisions. As in adult collections, a weeding process that strengthens the entire collection, both in appearance and content, requires the judgment of a person who knows children's literature, as well as the audience the collection serves. The review of the collection should be continuous, with one full cycle ideally completed annually. In evaluating the collection, standard lists and review sources should be consulted.
General Guidelines Juvenile Fiction Be ruthless in weeding juvenile fiction. While many titles are used for class reading assignments, most fiction is leisure reading. Popular interest is the primary criteria for this section. Weed duplicate copies of past bestsellers if interest has waned, beginning by discarding the most worn copies. Consider discarding older fiction especially when it has not circulated in the past two or three years. Also look for books that contain stereotyping, including stereotypical images and views of people with disabilities and the elderly, or gender and racial biases.
CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries. http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew Texas State Library and Archives Commission
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