Weeding

Our shelves in the Abbotsford library are bulging and overburdened, so we're undergoing a project to weed all of our collections.   Your input is both crucial and valued; we want to ensure that we retain items that are important to you and your students.

Deadline for response: January 16, 2026

Criteria for Weeding

The following lists are provided for your consideration. Please see instructions on "How To Save a Title" below.

What's on the list?

• Items that have not circulated in more than 6 years (2 full curriculum cycles for courses)
• Older or superceded editions of items in the collection
• Duplicate items where circulation doesn't support keeping multiple items
• Age of content in some cases

About our e-books: We have purchased some titles, which are permanent. Others are available as part of a subscription package that is selected by the vendor; these titles can disappear without warning. If a stable e-book version is needed, please note that in the Comments field.

We don't want to do this without your input, because no one knows the curriculum and our student needs better than you.

To recommend a title or titles for retention:

1. Download the spreadsheet.
2. Indicate whether to K (Keep) or Discard (D).  Add your comments in the Comments column. Please remember that this is a curriculum-focused collection, and our goal is to support current and developing curriculum, as well as student research areas. It's helpful to know which course(s) or program area(s) these resources will support.
3. Email your revised spreadsheet to diane.cruickshank@ufv.ca
4.  by the stated deadline.

Books that we weed from our collection are distributed in a number of ways:

1. We send as many titles as we can to Better World Books, a non-profit that finds new homes for library books and uses the funds raised to support libraries literacy.
2. We put as many remaining items as we can on our book sale cart; funds raised are used to purchase replacement copies for lost of damaged items.
3. Items that remain on our book sale cart for a prescribed length of time are offered for free.
4. We recycle any damaged items.

Videos are recycled (to the extent that we can recycle them), as the format is obsolete.

If you have questions or concerns about the disposition of items weeded from our collection, please contact  Martin Warkentin, Collections Librarian.