The Weeding issue comes up again

Yet another university is examining discarding print resources - Sydney University

http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/you-can-judge-a-book-by-its-dust-test-as-university-library-cuts-its-staff-and-stock-20110511-1ej0z.html?from=smh_sb

As you may notice, I am personally not a big fan of discarding books. I have to admit I love print books for the tacticle experience that they offer and can be invaluable to anyone who uses them.

What about professionally?

I have come a long way this semester on this issue. ETL503 (Collection Management) does look at the issue of "weeding" or removal of books which also helps me understand the situation occuring at the University of New South Wales as blogged two months ago.

I can understand the need to weed the resources by the university. There are some resources that are not "popular". Some resources are outdated. New editions are available or information no longer relevant or appropriate. What surprised me was that they accepted discarded books from other libraries - maybe a sign of improper selection and acquistion.

I hope they approach it on a book by book basis. Obviously some of the items to be weeded don't need to be. There will still be relevance and usefulness. Otherwise, the rest need to go. It can be painful. It is like the librarians in "The Day after Tomorrow" when they debate which books need to burned first to heat the room that they and the survivors are using.

This Week (ending May 6)

Constructing a Vision for a library and explaining how to undertake is proving to be quite tough. It is even harder when you are not presently employed in a library.

As the end of the week approaches - have I learnt much about the organisational theory or leadership element of it?

I am feeling that I learnt little at all this week. Alot of the resources that I have viewed and will use for the ETL504 Assignment are from ETL401 (Teacher Librarianship). I know what the role of teacher librarian is and how they can contribute towards the school community, but I am finding that identifying the stakeholders and how to explain how I am going to achieve the goals is difficult.

There seems to be a lack of useful professional resources out there to assist me in compiling my paper to demonstrate that I do use a variety of resources, particularly as I was deemed not to have done so in Assignment 1 for the same unit.

I did feel encouraged by L. Welsh writing " Groundwork: The Situational Anaylsis" In "the Other 51 Weeks: a marketing handbook for librarians". which guides me through the process of setting goals, objectives and then implementing the strategies. At least that will make a good table. Articles on identifying stakeholders is hard to find as well because I want to back it up with valid evidence.