Weed 'Em and Reap? Deselection of Political Science Books

Weeding academic library collections is widely acknowledged as a necessary and beneficial, but difficult, task. Little research has been done on how librarians approach weeding for a particular academic subject area and how they apply general weeding plans and criteria to a specific subject. This project examines the weeding practices of librarians with responsibility for managing book collections in political science and related disciplines through the use of a survey about their weeding experiences and perspectives. While survey respondents expressed similar motivations for weeding, the obstacles they encounter, and their approaches to developing weeding projects to those outlined in the literature, respondents were more confident about weeding and do it more frequently than one would expect from prior scholarship. Open text responses gave insight into how librarians apply broad and subjective weeding criteria, such as currency and relevance, to their politics-related collections.