How to Feed and Weed Your Collection | Weeding Guidelines

Things We've Dug Up While Weeding | Reader Comments

Why Weed Dinosaurs?

While trying to keep up with the rapidly changing modern world, it is easy to neglect to weed areas long regarded as fixed in time. However, current research often changes long held beliefs. Dinosaurs are a good example of this. Scientists know a great deal more about dinosaurs than they did even 5 or 10 years ago. This might make a great research project for older students; enlist their help in weeding the collection. (Since young children love materials on dinosaurs, many worn items have been weeded for that reason! If they aren't using the materials you have, shouldn't they be discarded and replaced with things students will use?)

Suggested Dewey Numbers to Check:

Most of your materials on dinosaurs will be in the 560s range. Remembering that young people learn many facts from fiction, check your fiction titles where dinosaurs are central to the theme. Remember to check vertical files, non-print materials, and the reference section. If you have a poster collection or study prints, be sure you check the accuracy of any dinosaurs.

Specific Criteria for Weeding:

Any non-fiction materials which show that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time are inaccurate. Over 60 million years passed from the time the dinosaurs died out until people appeared on earth. Dinosaurs did not eat grass. It hadn't evolved yet! Not all dinosaurs lived at the same time, either. Check illustrations. Are the tails of all the dinosaurs depicted as low and dragging behind them? Scientist now believe that a more accurate posture would be with the tails held high. While there are dozens of theories to explain why dinosaurs became extinct, there is widespread evidence that a meteorite impact was at least the partial cause. Much of what we thought we knew about dinosaurs has been speculation, not science. There is much debate to this day about dinosaurs.

Consider Weeding Titles Like These:

• After the dinosaurs, 1968. LCCN 67023037
• All about dinosaurs, c1953.
• All about strange beasts of the past, 1956. LCCN 56005464
• Allosaurus, c1953.
• The amazing fact book of monsters, 1973.
• Amazing world of dinosaurs [filmstrip], 1977. LCCN 77730955
• Animals of long ago, 1976.
• Animals, prehistoric and present [filmstrip], 1978.
• Archosauria : a new look at the old dinosaur, 1979. LCCN 78026823
• Baby brontosaurus, 1988.
• Before and after dinosaurs, 1959. LCCN 59009439
• The big, big egg, 1963. LCCN 63017351
• Book to begin on dinosaurs, 1959. LCCN 59006245
• Bruno Brontosaurus, 1983. LCCN 82013902
• Como y por que de los dinosaurios, 1972.
• The day of the dinosaur, 1968. LCCN 65019857
• Digging for dinosaurs, 1960.
• The dinosaur book, [1951]. LCCN 51011524
• Dinosaur book : the ruling reptiles and their relatives, 1951.
• The dinosaur world, c1972.
• Dinosaurs, c1973. ISBN 0307614557
• Dinosaurs, by Clark, 1955.
• Dinosaurs and more dinosaurs, c1965.
• Dinosaurs and other prehistoic animals, 1972. ISBN 0516098810
• Dinosaurs and their world, [1968]. LCCN 68011506
• Dinosaurs : their discovery and their world, [1961]. LCCN 61009765
• The evolution and ecology of the dinosaurs, 1975.
• The exciting world of dinosaurs, 1963.
• The how and why wonder book of dinosaurs, [1960].
• How did we find out about dinosaurs?, [1973]. LCCN 72095793
• I can read about dinosaurs, 1972. ISBN 0808524674
• Know your dinosaurs, [c1977]. LCCN 77076210
• The life of prehistoic animals, c1976. LCCN 77088946
• Men and dinosaurs : the search in field and laboratory, 1968. LCCN 68012457
• My little book of dinosaurs, c1973. ISBN 0307684822
• A natural history of dinosaurs, 1977. LCCN 77078124
• The natural history of the dinosaur, c1978.
• Now you know about dinosaurs, c1977. LCCN 76050979
• Prehistoric life, 1968.
• Prehistoric monsters, c1975. ISBN 0361032471
• Reptiles, past and present, c1976. LCCN 76150539
• The strange world of dinosaurs, [1964]. LCCN 64013038
• The true book of dinosaurs, c1955. LCCN 55698
• Vida intima de los animales de la prehistoria, [c1975].
• What dinosaur is it?, 1968. LCCN 58007298
• What did the dinosaurs ear?, [1972]. LCCN 72076692
• What is a dinosaur, c1961. LCCN 61006094
• What really happened to the dinosaurs?, c1967. ISBN 0525424725
• The wonderful egg, [1958]. LCCN 58007315
• The wonders of the dinosaur world, c1936.