San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
LIBRARY BOARD TO REVIEW ‘WEEDING’ POLICY
Escondido residents at meeting say too many books pulled
Several Escondido residents turned out at a meeting of the city’s Library Board of Trustees on Thursday to air their concerns about the library’s policy of considering whether to remove books from its collection if they haven’t been checked out for three years.
The item was placed on the board’s agenda after Virginia Abushanab, a longtime volunteer with the Escondido Friends of the Library Group, sent a letter to city officials outlining her contention that the “weeding” policy, as it is known among librarians, had left the Escondido library’s shelves bare.
The library board is a fivemember panel that advises the City Council on issues related to the operations of the city library on South Kalmia Street. The panel met in person with public participation at City Hall Thursday for the first time since 2020.
Under a contract approved by the council in 2017, the Escondido library is run by Library Systems & Services, a private firm based in Maryland. At the time, many residents spoke against outsourcing library management.
Abushanab told the library board Thursday, “We need all the books that we have as long as there is space for them. I look at each discarded book as a small death.”
She also described several books, such as a memoir by a young Chinese dissident and a history of Alaska, that she said were important to have in the library’s collection but had been removed due to weeding.
“Weeding a library is a lot like getting a haircut. There are good and bad haircuts. I think our library is guilty of bad weeding,” said Abushanab, a retired librarian.
“This is not weeding, this is Roundup,” said Bonnie Packert, referring to the chemical weed spray.
Debbie Resler told the board that she, too, has noticed fewer books on the library’s shelves. “It seems a lot of books that have a lot of value are being discarded for what seems like an inadequate reason,” she said.
Library director Dara Bradds, who works for LS&S along with her library staff, said the policy of removing books that haven’t been checked out in three years is a guideline rather than a hard and fast rule. Under questioning from library board members, Bradds said she has a master’s degree in library science and 20 years of experience working in libraries.
She said seven of her staff members also have master’s degrees, and three more are working on their degrees. Bradds said those credentialed library staffers are the ones who make the critical decisions about which books are to be “weeded” from the collection.
According to statistics supplied by the city, since LS&S took over in early 2018, the library’s book collection has decreased from 158,432 physical items to 129,431 as of May 4, a reduction of about 18 percent.
Bradds said among the reasons for the library’s shelves appearing more sparsely populated was that during COVID-19 restrictions, books were quarantined off the floor when they were returned. She showed a photo of the library’s shelves looking fuller after the health restrictions were relaxed.
In addition, deliveries of print books were canceled or postponed during the pandemic, leading to fewer books on the shelves, she said.
Bradds said she, too, has faced having to remove books she loves because they are no longer demanded by the reading public. Specifically, she mentioned “Blink” by Malcom Gladwell, an examination of human decision-making.
“It’s heartbreaking. None of us wants to get rid of a book. But we have a responsibility to keep our collection current,” Bradds said.
Following the comments by the public and library staff, library trustees said they generally supported the need to keep the collection up-to-date, and noted that library collections are trending away from print materials and toward digital items.
“I can understand the sentiments of our patrons, there’s nothing worse than walking into a library and seeing empty shelves,” said trustee Mirek Gorny. “Just as it may hurt to lose some of those books, it’s a sign of the times, (print) books are being replaced with electronic books.”
“We’re dealing with a paradigm shift, converting from hard covers to e-books,” said trustee Ron Guiles. “I don’t think we can stop weeding.”
Guiles said he would be open to allowing citizen participation in the weeding process, a suggestion other trustees seemed to support.
Trustee John Schwab said he would consider some form of citizen input as long as it didn’t interfere with the work of library staff.
And board President Carolyn Clemons said she would like to see a list of the books that haven’t been checked out in three years so she could better understand what library staff is dealing with.
Trustees asked staff to provide that list of books as well as models for citizen participation at the board’s next meeting in June.