If you’ve noticed books coming off the shelves in TCNJ’s R. Barbara Gitenstein Library recently, your eyes are not deceiving you. The library is in the middle of a large-scale weeding project: a normal, behind-the-scenes part of library work that helps keep collections useful, current, and responsive to how students and faculty are using the library today.
“Weeding, or deaccessioning, is a routine practice of librarianship,” said Library Director Erin Ackerman. “Our goal is to have a collection that responds to what our community needs, and those needs change over time.”
In an academic library, that means paying close attention to the curriculum, faculty research, and how students look for and use information. Some materials simply age out, e.g. directories with outdated information, older reference books, or decades of bound journals that are now easier to access online.
“A lot of the information isn’t going away,” Ackerman explained. “It has just moved to a different format — and often one that’s more convenient for students to use.”
Weeding is also about being good stewards of the collection, Ackerman says. Overcrowded shelves can make books hard to browse and even cause them damage. Creating a little breathing room helps protect the materials the library keeps, and makes it easier for people to find what they’re looking for.
Just as important, the project supports how students are currently using the library as a space. With group study rooms in constant demand and students spending long hours doing collaborative work, freeing up space allows the library to explore new layouts, potentially add more study areas, and provide additional ways to support student life.
“Libraries are about connection,” said Ackerman. “It’s about connecting people to information, to librarians, and to each other.”
One especially meaningful part of this project is what’s happening to many of the books that are leaving the shelves. While most of the materials are being responsibly recycled, hundreds more have found a second life through a nonprofit book bank that provides books to classroom teachers and children.
BookSmiles is led by TCNJ alumnus Larry Abrams MAT ’01, making the partnership a true full-circle moment. Abrams, a former teacher, founded the organization after seeing firsthand how difficult it can be for educators to build classroom libraries on their own.
So far, BookSmiles has made multiple trips to campus, filling trucks with everything from older encyclopedias to duplicate children’s titles that can now support their work in classrooms across the region.
For community members who feel a twinge of sadness seeing books removed, Ackerman understands.
“I get it,” she said. “Books represent experiences, discovery, and investment. But what matters most isn’t the container; it’s making sure people can access the information they need.”
And in that sense, the project does exactly what she describes, by making sure that people have access to what they need, whether they’re studying in the Gitenstein Library or reading in a classroom far beyond campus.
— Emily W. Dodd ’03