Collection Maintenance; a gardener’s delight

A library’s collection is like a garden. First and foremost, it requires a plan that drives what goes into the garden. Then like a garden, the collection needs to be nurtured and maintained. It cannot just continue to grow and grow without careful attention. Sooner or later, if it is neglected it becomes unruly, overgrown and filled with weeds. It calls out desperately for tender loving care, to be pruned and to be weeded, to replace what has become shabby, to add where gaps have formed.

I have become the library’s gardener and like the gardener, every day I tend to the collection. I admire it, I nurture it, I prune it, and I weed it. I obsess over it and I am very passionate about it. I anxiously await for the new selections to arrive hurrying them along to get them on the shelves as soon as possible.

Perhaps it is too soon to see the fruits of my labour. But if one looks carefully, especially in the areas of Philosophy, Psychology and Religion one might begin to see some changes. As work progresses, more and more, one may notice that the books in these subject areas are current and relevant with the classics and standards for the most part having been replaced with gleaming new editions. They have all been selected to take their rightful place on the library shelves where they will continue to be lovingly nurtured, pruned and weeded much to the delight of this avid gardener.