How to Feed and Weed Your Collection | Weeding Guidelines

Things We've Dug Up While Weeding | Reader Comments

Why Weed Presidential Elections?

Sometimes you weed a section of your collection to prepare it for upcoming heavy use and interest. Get ready for fall 2004 and high interest in the presidential election! This is a good time to review what you have, discard the outdated, add the best of current new titles, and be prepared to continue to add titles as they are released.

Suggested Dewey Numbers to Check:

Most of your older titles on U.S. political parties and the election process will be in the 329s. This number is now unassigned and no longer used by Dewey. As of 1997, the new number range for titles on these topics is the 324s. This would be a good time to review all your titles (over 7 years old) in the 329s and decide if you want to keep any of them and relocate to the 324s. Be sure to check the reference section as well as the AV collection.

Specific Criteria for Weeding:

Students who are following the current political news and are interested in the political process will not want to pick up titles that were published twenty or thirty years ago! In some cases, the title has been updated and republished. If the title was useful in it's time, consider replacing it with an updated version. Otherwise, discard it.

Look at any older titles to see if they are strictly limited to facts for specific past elections or if they also deal in general with other elections' issues debated as "current" at the time of publication. Those issues may not match today's concerns about campaign finance reform, term limits, or post-2000 election changes. Discard any title that is misleading as to today's issues. Also discard any that by title implies currency or comprehensiveness.

Bias can be an issue with titles on this topic, especially when including some primary source materials from over the years. Watch that you at least have balance on controversial issues. Make sure your collection does not reflect personal opinion - yours or a predecessor's.

Consider Weeding Titles Like These:

• America at the polls : a handbook of American presidential elections statistics, 1920-1964, 1965.
• Choices and echoes in Presidential elections : rational man and electoral democracy, c1978.
• The glorious burden : the history of the presidency and the presidential elections from George Washington to James Earl Carter, Jr., 1976.
• The great American convention : a political history of presidential elections, 1976.
• A history of presidential elections, 1957.
• How America votes in presidential elections, 1968.
• Presidential elections since 1789, 1975.
• Presidential elections; strategies of American electoral politics, 1971.
• The presidents of the United States : a history of the presidents of the United States, 1976.
• The road to the White House : the politics of presidential elections, 1980.
• A short history of presidential elections, 1967.
• Source book of American presidential campaign and election statistics, 1948-1968, 1971.
• A statistical history of the American presidential elections, 1968.
• Third parties in presidential elections, 1974.