How to Feed and Weed Your Collection | Weeding Guidelines

Things We've Dug Up While Weeding | Reader Comments

Why Weed Space and Astronomy?

The need to weed the topics of Space and Astronomy prompted the beginning of the Weed of the Month program by the SUNLINK Project in 1997. A library media specialist sent a posting to LM_NET after discovering that her collection contained a copy of Tomorrow the Moon, published in 1959. But it was 1997, and Neil Armstrong had first walked on the moon years earlier, in 1969! A plea went out to all library media specialists to weed their space and astronomy collections. And that topic became the first Weed of the Month in September 1997. If you last concentrated on weeding that subject in 1997, you need to do it again! Much has changed in world space programs since the late 1990s. NASA is again planning on going to the moon -- but the projected return flight is 2018! That 1959 copy of Tomorrow the Moon (and others like it) is doubly dangerous now.

Suggested Dewey Numbers to Check:

Check the 520s (Astronomy and Allied Sciences) in both the circulating and the reference sections. Also check the biography section for famous names in space explanations and explorations. Finally, review the AV collection and also try to locate fiction titles with a central topic of space exploration.

Specific Criteria for Weeding:

From the launch of the first successful weather satellite in 1960 to NASA's ambitious plans announced in 2005 to return to the moon in 2018, the field of space and astronomy moves very quickly and with a lot of national and international news attention. Any titles on space exploration that were published closer to that 1960 date should not be in your collection. Many space topics also have a natural conclusion that should be reflected in titles on those subjects: the Mir space station launched by the Soviets in 1986 was "de-orbited" in 2001, the Hubble space telescope story is incomplete without references to it's defects, the Columbia shuttle which began in 1981 ended in tragedy with its 28th mission in 2003. Check to make sure the titles you keep in your collection tell the complete story. Also, provide an international balance by including materials on the Russian contribution and the recent entry of China (in partnership with India) in space. All titles on our solar system may be outdated soon if the recent discovery of the tenth planet is confirmed. Regardless of the status of this new "planet" that is bigger than Pluto (ninth planet identified in 1930), titles on the solar system should include some of the recent debate on what qualifies as a planet in our solar system.

Consider Weeding Titles Like These:

• 2000 years of space travel, 1963.
• 50 facts about space, 1983.
• Astronomy from space : Sputnik to space telescope, 1983.
• Astronomy in the space age [filmstrip], 1968.
• Atlas of the moon : astronomy, astronautics, 1964.
• A book of moon rockets for you, 1964.
• Dictionary of astronomy, space, and atmospheric phenomena, 1982.
• Earth and the universe [filmstrip], 1976.
• Earth, moon, sun, and space [filmstrip], 1985.
• Exploring space : how astronomers study the universe [videorecording], 1978.
• Going to the moon [kit], 1978.
• The golden book of astronomy; a child's introduction to the wonders of space, 1959.
• Intelligent life in space, 1962.
• Introducing astronomy [filmstrip], 1983.
• Moon flights. 1985.
• My first book about space : a question and answer book, 1982.
• The new astronomy : probing the secrets of space, 1982.
• The New space encyclopaedia : a guide to astronomy and space exploration, 1973.
• Race for the moon, 1979.
• Secrets of the universe [filmstrip], 1976.
• Space : a fact and riddle book, 1978.
• The Space encyclopaedia : a guide to astronomy and space research, 1958.
• Space science; a new look at the universe, 1967.
• Watchers of the skies : an informal history of astronomy from Babylon to the space age, 1966.
• You and space neighbors, 1953.