from Mme. Payne
I am very excited to tell you that we are undertaking a huge Library Revitalization Project here at Allenby. This project involves weeding many books from the library. There are some FAQs about weeding here that you can read through to get a better understanding of how books are chosen to be removed from the library. The weeding is done in consultation with our Teacher Librarian (me), our Library Instructional Leader (Andrea Sykes), our French Instructional Leader (Brigitte Hansen), a team of 5 TDSB Library Technicians, as well as a small team of experienced parent volunteers.
The weeding will focus on removing materials based on condition and suitability for supporting student learning at Allenby with the goals of providing an up-to-date and relevant collection and ensuring an accessible and efficient collection.
Weeding helps to:
- Create an up-to-date collection
- Ensure that all parts of the collection have been evaluated for equity issues and stereotyping
- Make gap analysis easier
- Direct further collection development
- Provide a cleaner and more attractive collection
- Make it easier to search and find relevant material
- Make it easier to maintain the library
- Highlight and makes accessible new and exciting resources
Unfortunately, in order to complete this project, the library will need be completely closed during the week of November 26-30. All book exchange will be cancelled during that week, and the computer lab will be closed to teachers and students. Although this is a temporary inconvenience to staff and students, it is necessary, as virtually every single book (We have over 27 000 of them!) in the library will be in use during that week. Most will be removed from the shelves, examined, many will be moved, repaired, or re-catalogued. Some shelving and furniture will also be moved around.
There will likely be a large number of books deleted from our collection. Some of these books are still in good condition, current, appropriate, and suitable for classroom use. These may be extra copies, or simply books that can be better used by teachers if they keep them in their own classroom libraries. As such, these books will be made available to teachers. Also, in some cases books that are still popular are in poor condition. The school has also committed some funds to purchase new copies of these as well as some exciting new resources.
You may want to read the Q&A about the Library Revitalization process