The hatchet team came to my library today.

I don’t know what they’re officially called, but they were coming from some central location to whittle our collection down. And yes, we’re still open to the public. We’ve had people come to weed our collections before, but I usually give them a more charitable nickname, like “weeding elves”. But this group is tasked with getting rid of everything that is not PRISTINE, which would leave us with hardly anything on our shelves.  Hence the “hatchet team” moniker.

It wasn’t clear how much they were going to get rid of each day, what criteria they were going to use, or what would be the fate of the books they pulled from the shelves. This is what was in the back of my mind every time I looked at my collection (I know, silly me, I still think of it as “my collection”).

Finally I decided that I needed to save some of my excellent books that were in less-than-excellent condition. To that end, I picked almost twenty books that were some of my personal favorites which I thought might be on the chopping block and reassigned them to other branches yesterday.

Maybe they’ll be deleted/lost/stolen from their new locations. Maybe they’ll find their way back to my shelves in a few weeks or a few months. Or maybe they will find new readers who will love them just as much as I did. All I could do was send them on their way and hope for the best.

Here are some of the titles I sent on their way.  Some were beaten-up copies of books that have several copies left in our system.  And some were the only copies left in our system.  Some are out of print, which is why I’ve been keeping these older copies.  In any case, they didn’t deserve to be deleted just because they had the misfortune of sitting on our shelves.  Oh, and if you’re one of my Dear Readers and I know where you work, keep an eye out because some of these books will be making their way to YOUR shelves.

Barkley, Brad & Heather Hepler – Jars of Glass

Baskin, Nora Raleigh – All We Know of Love

Giles, Gail – What Happened to Cass McBride?

Klause, Annette Curtis – Blood and Chocolate

Leavitt, Martine – Keturah and Lord Death

Lyga, Barry – The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

McNamee, Graham – Hate You

Quarles, Heather – A Door Near Here

Sleator, William – House of Stairs

Supplee, Suzanne – Artichoke’s Heart

Yolen, Jane – Here There Be Ghosts

Yolen, Jane – Here There Be Witches