About the Authors
Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner are public librarians in Michigan. We have worked together for over ten years. We both have a passion for books and libraries, so we created this web site to share some of the cool (and, if we’re being honest, not so cool) old books that have crossed our paths over the years.
Will Weed for Food
We are available for conference presentations and staff in-services. We can happily discuss collection quality, maintenance, development, and weeding. Hey – name your topic and we’ll enlighten you with our wisdom!
Contact us at awfullibrarybooks@gmail.com.
Presentations on Slideshare
We have presented at quite a few library conferences on a variety of subjects. Check out our Slideshare pages to see our presentations!
Our CV
Speaking Engagements
- Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, “Not Just for Kids: Promoting Library Services through Adult Summer Reading Programs,” American Library Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, July 2009.
- Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, “Thingamabobs and Doodads: Why Tech Support IS Reference,” American Library Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, July 2009.
- Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, “Making a Collection Count,” Rural Libraries Conference, Traverse City, MI, April 2009.
- Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, “Teaching Computers to Beginners,” Rural Libraries Conference, Traverse City, MI, April 2009.
Published Articles
- Hibner, H. and Kelly, M. (2008). “Not Just for the Kids: Promoting Library Services through Adult Summer Reading Programs.” Public Libraries, Jul/Aug 2008.
- Hibner, H. (2007). “Reference on the Edge.” Public Libraries, 46:1, 21-22.
- Hibner, H. and Kelly, M. (2005) “Teaching Computers to Seniors: What Not to Do.” Public Libraries, May/June 2005, 151-155.
- Hibner, H. (2005). “The Wireless Librarian: Using Tablet PCs for Ultimate Reference and Customer Service: A Case Study.” Library Hi Tech News, 22:5, 19-22.
Citation
- McGrath, R.V. (2005) “Real Reader Advisory: New Approaches for Marketing Your Library.” Public Libraries, Jan/Feb2005, 6.
27 responses so far ↓
Eva G. // July 11, 2009 at 11:13 pm |
Love this blog. Very funny stuff.
Thomas // July 13, 2009 at 10:27 am |
Love, love, love your blog.
There is one benefit of having poorly weeded shelves–at least when it comes to fiction. At many well funded, well weeded libraries, trying to find a bit of Anthony Trollope or Willa Cather or other “classic” author can be pretty hard amongst the shelves of best sellers. And woe to those who actually want to read all of the Chronicle of Barsetshire, or who want to read more of Cather than just My Antonia or O, Pioneers. But here in Washington DC, in our rather sad, main public library, you can find rows Cather and more Trollope than you can carry. And I am fairly convinced that I am the only one checking the stuff out. The first time I enountered the six shelves of Trollope I couldn’t find the title I was looking for and almost gave up. I spent about 30 minutes alphabetizing by title (and weeding out the Joanna Trollopes that were mixed in!). In the process I found about 5 copies of the book that I was looking for.
Anne // September 12, 2009 at 3:28 pm |
Connie Willis’ Bellwether features a central character who is constantly checking out the classics from her local library to prevent them from being weeded because of low circulation.
I used to be a fiction librarian and spent a lot of time justifying keeping the classic authors around. I hear you.
Liz // July 13, 2009 at 5:39 pm |
Your site is absolutely hilarious and I love it!
I worked as a library page in high school and part of the way through college at my small hometown library in western PA. This library *used* to have many, many books such as the ones you feature here, but someone came through and did a very thorough weeding. I did discover where they went: directly to the overflowing tables and boxes of their annual book sale.
That was the year I examined all the books at the sale with mounting hilarity, as I recalled many of the titles and thought to myself: “I remember shelving these over 20 years ago!”
It was also the year that I left without buying a one.
adayinthelyfe // July 16, 2009 at 4:40 pm |
This blog is fabulous! I’m not a librarian but am a book-lover, and this blog is a great distraction at work. Thanks!
Linda // July 19, 2009 at 12:40 pm |
Hello, my name is Linda and I am a reluctant weeder.
Your site is hilarious and so true!
One of the best reasons to weed: getting rid of that musty smell coming from the nonfiction area.
mary // July 23, 2009 at 10:38 pm |
love the site! thanks so much for putting it together…i stumbled upon it through a posting on LJ. hehe.
hmm.. when i was a kid i wanted to be a librarian…. is it weird that i love the smell of musty old books? *shudders*
Lazarus // July 27, 2009 at 6:28 pm |
Great blog, love it!
Josefine // August 8, 2009 at 1:30 pm |
Great blog! I laugh so many times reading what you think about the books. I have propmtly sent the url to my mum, who works at a library in Sweden, I know she will get a kick out of this!
soo // August 13, 2009 at 2:53 am |
Wonderful site! After 30 years as a librarian in Britain, I had a small collection of the worst horrors I came across when weeding school libraries. Your posts are well up there with the truly dreadful.
Stacey Harris // August 13, 2009 at 1:11 pm |
I work in a public library with a few staunch anti-weeding staff members. I love to weed, to the point that a few coworkers make fun of me for it. I e-mailed the entire staff a link to this site to demonstrate why weeding is so essential. Thank you!
Angiportus // August 19, 2009 at 11:08 am |
I just discovered this site. I am a library patron who has been delighted, revolted, or just plain bemused by the oddities I sometimes find on the shelves. My favorite staff member is in charge of some of the weeding. I never heard her laugh so loud as the day in ‘07 that I turned up a buisness travel guide to Germany that was so old the maps still showed the Wall.
I have mixed emotions about the whole buisness–on the one hand, I think old stuff should be find-able for the serious investigators, but there needs to be room for the new stuff too. University libraries, one of which I am lucky to have nearby, and a good ILL service are a couple of good answers to this problem. So is the Gutenberg Project. But it’s an ongoing mess.
And there’s another key ingredient–teaching everyone to break out the critical thinking for anything they read, before they are out of school. I learned the hard way.
Genevieve // August 31, 2009 at 11:40 am |
Love your site, and have recommended it to many of my fellow librarians.
I have a question. (After a few months of reading the blog, and looking at comments here and there, I can’t find the answer. I apologize if I overlooked it somewhere.)
I assume that most of your submissions (or at least some of them) are books you’ve ILL’ed from other libraries. You mentioned this in passing a few times, but I don’t know for sure if that’s usually the case or not. When the book is returned, do you let the owning libraries know about your assessment? I know there’s a debate raging over in the “Why We Weed” section, so I can understand why you wouldn’t…and maybe by giving the book some time off the shelf, maybe the person who makes weeding decisions would get a chance see it, and decide to weed it. HOWEVER, I do know that in our small library, our collection development librarian looks mainly at circ stats to determine if a book needs weeding…and I assume other libraries take this into account as well. So, by ILL’ing these books, are you in fact encouraging libraries, who would use circ stats as a determinant, to keep the offending title? They might see the book has been loaned out recently, and think people still want it.
marykelly48 // August 31, 2009 at 12:25 pm |
A good chunk of the books are submissions (some on the sly), also my library is part of a network loan and some are ILL. Holly and I troll catalogs on a topic just to see what shows up. I certainly hope that my one lousy circ isn’t the sole determining factor on any weeding decision, especially when we are talking about some of the more serious topics in health, finance and careers. In those kind of books, circulation stats/popularity should not be a factor. The information is not accurate and it should be weeded. You are might be right about things like craft books (like the knitting or quilting books we have posted) where demand is a bigger issue. I still think that circulation should only be a factor in weeding and mostly to indicate to the library that we need new/better materals, not necessarily that exact same book.
Amy // September 3, 2009 at 5:05 pm |
This is fantastic! So much to read, love and laugh about at your local library.
Christy // September 4, 2009 at 12:16 am |
I now work in publishing, but I owned my own bookshop for years and I came across some interesting ex-library books in my day! Love this blog, entertaining and brings back memories of the hilarious finds I came across… Some were too good to leave behind. Keep up the great work; I’m reading.
Jan Reed // September 28, 2009 at 5:31 pm |
I love your blog! Weeding is one of my favorite activities although it does create a storage nightmare because I can’t get rid of the stuff fast enough. Keep up the good work!
Amanda // October 2, 2009 at 9:03 am |
You’re blog always brings a smile to my face – thanks for sharing your great finds1
Shorty // October 21, 2009 at 11:19 pm |
I’m studying to be a librarian (I should graduate next year, I’m 22), so I’m kinda looking forward to weeding out awful books in the future as part of my job xD
This blog is hilarious, I’ve been laughing and cringing at the books released before I was even born! I can’t believe there’s books still in libraries that were published 20 years before I was born!
chmod007 // November 2, 2009 at 11:10 pm |
“I can’t believe there’s books still in libraries that were published 20 years before I was born!”
I would be extremely upset were that not the case!
Aaron & Aiden // November 12, 2009 at 2:03 am |
Saw you on Kimmel–Great job! You two are so cute. Funny site. Maybe I can find the Vanilla Ice trivia book that we brought home for laughs from the “free” table at our local public library.
Max // November 12, 2009 at 10:43 am |
Is “weed” supposed to be a funny way of saying “read”?
Heidi // November 12, 2009 at 5:46 pm |
Saw you two on JK last night…so freakin’ funny! This site is so perfect for a bookworm like me!
Susan // November 12, 2009 at 9:05 pm |
Great site – lots of fun!
I worry less about weeds than about collection policies that exclude quality and uniqueness. I shudder when I hear about libraries allowing wholesalers to do the selecting for them.
Joanne // November 13, 2009 at 2:24 pm |
I’m a fellow Michigan librarian who saw you mentioned in today’s Detroit Free Press. Great blog.
Angela // November 16, 2009 at 1:10 am |
Just a few years ago, I found a book at the public library where I worked about how man will go to the moon one day. The director used it at speaking engagements as an example of how the library needed more funding to buy more up-to-date books!
Wendy // November 23, 2009 at 6:36 pm |
I had an absolute blast reading through your blog today. Thanks so much for a wonderful afternoon.