Weeding

Collection development policies: These are the guidelines and procedures for building and maintaining a library or museum's collection. It includes criteria for selecting materials, weeding guidelines, and guidelines for discarding or donating materials that are no longer needed.

Collection analysis: This involves evaluating the current collection to determine its strengths, weaknesses, and areas of growth. It includes assessing the relevance, accuracy, and currency of materials and identifying gaps in the collection.

Collection evaluation: This is the process of assessing a collection to determine its effectiveness in meeting the needs of its users. It includes gathering feedback from users, analyzing circulation data, and assessing the success of specific items or collections.

Weeding criteria: These are the guidelines for selecting materials for withdrawal from the collection. It includes criteria such as age, condition, relevance, and duplication.

Weeding techniques: This refers to the various methods of removing materials from the collection, including discarding, storing, and donating.

Preservation and conservation: This involves the care and maintenance of the collection to ensure its longevity. It includes proper handling, storage, and environmental control.

Budgeting: This refers to the allocation of funds for collection development, including the purchase of new materials and the replacement of withdrawn items.

Acquisitions: This involves the process of acquiring new materials for the collection. It includes purchasing, gifts, and donations.

Collection maintenance: This includes ongoing tasks such as shelving, inventory, and cataloging.

User needs assessment: This involves gathering information about the needs and preferences of library or museum users to inform collection development decisions. It includes surveys, focus groups, and usage data analysis.

Routine weeding: Also known as ongoing or continuous weeding. It is a regular process of reviewing materials in a collection over time to evaluate their usefulness, relevance, and condition. Routine weeding ensures that a collection remains up-to-date, relevant, and valuable to its users.

Inventory weeding: Also known as a complete weeding or a shelf-reading. It is a process of systematically and thoroughly reviewing all materials in a collection to identify outdated, damaged, poorly used, or duplicate items. Inventory weeding helps to identify materials that need to be replaced, updated, or discarded.

Discard weeding: Also known as withdrawal or deselection. It is a process of removing materials from a collection that are no longer useful, relevant, or valuable to its users. Discard weeding involves evaluating materials based on their condition, age, usage, popularity, and relevance to the collection’s mission, and removing items that don't meet those criteria.

Special weeding: Also known as targeted weeding. It is a process of reviewing materials in a specific area of a collection, such as a subject area, format, or age level. Special weeding may be conducted to update and refresh an area of the collection, make room for new materials, or remove obsolete or inaccurate information.

Preservation weeding: Also known as conservation weeding. It is a process of removing materials from a collection that are too damaged or deteriorated to be useful, and that cannot be economically restored or repaired.

Budget-based weeding: Also known as value-based weeding. It is a process of prioritizing materials for removal based on their cost, usage, and value to the collection. Budget-based weeding helps to ensure that resources are allocated appropriately and that the collection remains relevant and useful to its users.