Weed

Well that title grabbed your attention, didn't it?

Sorry, wrong kind of weed.

My context here is the weeding of a library collection. Libraries are buildings with finite space. And to make room for the new, we need to weed out the old.

Each library has it's own set of weeding criteria defined by the library collection, mandate and user group. But one thing most libraries (in theory) agree on is that obsolete material must go.

(OK, I'm over simplifying things here, but I'm hardly writing a policy and procedure manual. If you want the details on weeding policy, get a diploma, or a degree.)

Weeding the collection isn't always easy, and it's also very time consuming. So this chore sometimes get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. The end result is that we often have material on our shelves that really shouldn't be there.

From this collection of crap archive material sprung forth Awful Library Books. A wonderful witty site dedicated to user submitted books lurking in library collections.

And it's gone Hollywood.

The proprietors of this great site, Mary and Holly, appeared recently on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Share and enjoy:



Here are the specific posts of the books discussed in the show:

• What's Wrong with my Snake


• Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps


• Do-It-Yourself Coffins: For Pets and People


• Dee Snider’s Teenage Survival Guide


• Knitting with Dog Hair


• Gary Coleman: Medical Miracle


• A Passion for Donkeys

Full disclosure: I checked the Vancouver Public Library catalogue for each of these items.

Alas, we have two:

• Do-It-Yourself Coffins: For Pets and People


• Knitting with Dog Hair

29% failure rate. That's not too bad, is it?