Used book sales are the measure of how many used books a library receives, and what kinds of books they are. If I receive 12 copies of The Cat in the Hat in the course of a year -- yes, I do too -- I will probably keep two, in addition to the two we already have, and give the other 10 to the Friends of the Library book sale. This doesn't mean I dislike Dr. Seuss. It means I want to have some room in the Beginner Readers for someone else.

A friend of mine is the director of a very small small-town library hemmed in on three sides by railroad track. (The library is housed in a charming late-19th-century railroad station.) As they have nowhere to expand, every new purchase she makes must be accompanied by a withdrawal. It's very painful, but oh, their book sale! Space is often an issue.

I'd get rid of a kids' book about Nixon, too, if it was written before his death. The only complete biographies are about dead people. You go for complete if you can. Sometimes I ditch books because something more current, attractive, and hi-gloss has become available, and the old stuff isn't going out. That might be the older patriotic book series you noticed. They do no good if all they do is collect dust. The important question is, were they replaced?

If you're looking for pattern in withdrawals, be sure to look at the book's popularity. After a book leaves the best seller list, it's general practice to withdraw the extra copies -- sometimes as many as 10, in the larger libraries -- and leave only one or two in the general collection. That might be Rush.

The book's condition is also a factor. Cartoon books are usually paperbacks; the large format ones take a real beating. They can be replaced, and the library copy still in good enough shape for a private user, sold. That might be Doonesbury.

Actually, that might be any book: if a donation comes in that's a suitable replacement for a book that has seen better days, we take it. Free is good. It'll take us anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour to process it, and will cost no more than $5.00 to do.

The Carter Family Album? Would that be Jimmy or June? Any country music fans where you live?

The most effective, and least obtrusive, way to bias a collection of any kind is not getting rid of the undesired objects, as sales always attract attention -- that's the whole point, after all. Rather, one avoids buying them in the first place. To uncover that, you have to analyze the catalog.

Regards--
Mary Anne