Book Reviews by the Numbers

In the fall of 1985, four rural Illinois public libraries were weeded as part of a research project funded by the lllinois State Library. In each library, ten percent of the collection was removed by identifying books with low circulation rates in the circulating adult collection. Shelf time period and subjective opinion were used as weeding criteria. Although this cooperative weeding approach accurately identified books that would remain unused, weeding was not met with a corresponding increase in circulation.