Thursday, May 20, 2010

More Weeds (Ref 360's)


This section contains quite a few items that haven't been off the shelves for years, and probably should be discarded. There are so many of them they are on a separate cart. Basically if you have any strong feelings about any of the items on the discard cart, or any of the items in the non discard cart, let me know. I'm flexible.
*
Some questions: Kristen, look at Earth Works. Do you think this is worthwhile for readers advisory?
*
Bloodletters and Badmen and The Encyclopedia of American Crime: they are both really fun to browse, but do we need them both? On the other hand, where else are you going to find stuff like this.
*
Crime in the United States: We have 2002-2005; 2008-2010. What do you think about keeping them all? This is all online, but I found it difficult to get to. Try getting to some of the tables and see if you have as hard a time as I did.
*
TheStreet.com Ratings: (Property/Casualty, Health Insurers, Life and Annuity Insurers): These come out quarterly. I think we should keep at least one previous issue, because since I have been prominently displaying them on the counter top, they can disappear. Also, there is a set that includes 8 titles (Elder Care Choices, Variable Annuities, Medicare Supplement Insurance, etc.) that is in Consumer REF. I have them displayed in the same place. Maybe we should think about having them all catalogued in the same place?
*
The Social Security publications: We certainly don't need all those. particularly for both ref and circ. They are all standing orders. I propose we discontinue Social Security Handbook, which is the most expensive, and limit CCH Social Security Explained and CCH Medicare Explained to one reference copy. Or do you think, with everything online, we could limit ourselves to the two small CCH publications?

6 comments:

Catherine Harper said...

I agree with all of Jane’s decisions as to which items to keep and which to discard. Here are my recommendations on the question marks. I’d:

Keep Fraternal Organizations, Dictionary of Secret Societies and Secret Organizations for their unique historical information.

Discard the Environmental Encyclopedia. We can get better info from the web.

Keep the Homelessness Handbook where it is, but I don’t feel strongly about it.

Discard Health Care Policy and Politics. It’s over 10 years old, and things have certainly changed.

Put Banned in the Media in Circ. Maybe it would get more use there. It is a great book, but after ten years it still looks pristine.

Keep Natural Disasters—good articles on the Black Death, the Donner Party, the Irish Potato Famine, etc. Disasters--the more horrendous the better--are always popular paper topics among middle and high-schoolers.

Keep the Dictionary of Ecology, but not update.

Keep the War on Drugs.

Stop the standing order for Crime in the United States. The web site works fine for me.

By all means, keep Bloodletters and Bad Men and the Encyclopedia of Crime. Like disasters, famous crimes and criminals are topics always popular with adolescents and pre-adolescents.

Put all the Street.com insurance titles together.

Go with both CCH Social Security and Medicare titles and drop Social Security Handbook.

mlh said...

I agree on the discards. There is a newer version of the Environmental Encyclopedia but at 2002 that is already dated. Gale has a virtual encyclopedia available which might be worth checking.

mlh said...

I agree on the discards. There is a 2002 update on the Environmental Encyclopedia but it is 2002 and probably already dated. Gale has a virtual environmental encyclopedia on line which might be checked. mlh

Kristin said...

I love Crime in the United States print version, and I think it’s important to have even if it is available online, with effort; *Bloodletters and Badmen and The Encyclopedia of American Crime - I think it’s also our duty to keep the quirky books that you may not find elsewhere.

Regarding Earth Works, I think we can let it go. The intro states that it is a guide to the “best new and classic books about nature and the environment for adults and young adults,” however such a significant number of things have happened since 1996, environmentally speaking, paired with the profusion of books regarding the environment, that I think we can use our own devices to steer people to what they may be looking for.

Will chime in on the rest at a later time...

Jane said...

GS says:
I agree with all of Jane’s comments in the reference books. I think we should broaden the call number range for the Health Reference to include the books on homelessness, health care policy and suicide.

I think we should keep the smaller Social Security handbooks even though most of it is online. Since the target audience for these publications is the one least likely to want to use the Internet, I think we should have a print copy handy.

JiHae said...

I doubt even the computer illiterate would want to wade through government tomes in print. I'm all for saving money by not purchasing gov docs that will be outdated within the year. Stick with the mini-books.

Maybe I'm just not in a booklover mode this afternoon, but none of the books on the keep cart thrill me, the only exception being 'And Introduction to Crime and Punishment in Colonial New Jersey'. We are one in 79 libraries that own this according to OCLC. Really interesting stuff in this thin little book. It's kind of falling apart though, so would recommend it goes on the non-circulating reference list if it's not already.

I often see patrons browsing the Street.com publications and would recommend keeping them on display and all together.