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The Teaching Librarian 20.1 25 scenarios of what could happen: 1. The boys' physical education teacher has an overdue book on body piercing and now the entire school is discussing whether or not he has had work done and where. 2. A Muslim father walks past the overdue list and discovers that his daughter, against his wishes, has been reading the Koran. 3. A shy grade 8 boy is "outed" when his overdue notice is posted. Suggest to your principal that an alternative end-of-year overdue book procedure might be to print out a confidential list for each classroom teacher and then fold and staple individual student notices so only the students' names are visible. Dear Rita Resourceful, While weeding recently I came across an old picture book called, I'd Rather Get a Spanking Than Go To The Doctor by Karen Frandsen and promptly removed it as inappropriate. Is there some kind of central list that professionals use to weed books like this one? Signed, Bemused Dear Bemused: Some truly awful books should be removed from the shelves but could be kept for teaching purposes. Frandsen's book might, for example, be used to discuss just how much cultural norms around child rearing, discipline and health care have changed since the 1980s. As there is no central list for weeding, you must instead use your own good judgment and that of your colleagues. The general rule for weeding is to get rid of misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, or irrelevant material. When you are weeding for a school library here are a few more tips that might help: • Weed resources with outdated, biased, stereotypical or offensive illustrations • Keep your collection current -- a school library is not an archive • Keep good statistics so that you can demonstrate increased circulation numbers after weeding and the improvement of the average age of the collection • Do a little bit of weeding on a regular basis all year • Access the support of experienced teacher-librarians or library specialists to help you in this process, especially if this is a new experience for you. z "The general rule for weeding is to get rid of misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, or irrelevant material. TingL_20.1-draft3.indd 25 12-08-20 3:12 PM