Deacquisitioning

Librarians who buy materials for libraries are doing the task called "acquisition." When they decide to get rid of that which they previously bought, stored and used, it's called "deacquisition," (aka deselection or weeding). There are guidelines, and the suggestion is to begin with 200-300 items.

So that's what we're doing to get ready for the new storage in the garage. I told my husband this was backward--and I've weeded many a collection. First you weed, then you decide how much shelving you need. If you move it, it will stay.

I've found a number of usable but useless things--like dirty canvas book bags. Absolutely nothing wrong with them but they can't be cleaned. A under the bed storage box (cardboard) still in the wrapper--possibly 20 years old--most people use plastic now. A piece of carpet in case something awful ever happened to the bedroom and we needed just that size.