Video: “University of Vermont Library Weeding Books”
From WCSX:
There are 1.6 million books in the [University of Vermont’s Bailey-Howe] library’s collection, and while more people than ever are spending their time here, it’s not exactly for the pages. In 2016, 90,000 books went almost two decades without being used. The library put them in remote storage. That’s the most amount of books to be taken out of this library at one time.
“Libraries have always done weeding,” said [Mara] Saule, UVM’s dean of libraries.
She says her team is constantly checking for duplicates, a book’s relevance and whether it’s already stored online. If so, those books are taken off the shelves and are recycled or stored. It’s happening more often, and some of these shelves are staying empty.
“The number of print books that we get in is fewer and fewer,” said Saule.
She says the library still adds about 1,200 physical books a year, but when it comes to research journals, digitizing is the future. And it’s changing the way students study.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.