These books are shelved separately in the Children's, Young Adult and Adult collections. Unless the person treated is of permanent interest or importance, biographies may be weeded as demand stops. This applies especially to ghost written biographies of faddish celebrities. Poor quality biographies of major celebrities should be replaced with better ones if funds permit. Biographies of outstanding literary value are to be kept until worn, without regard to the biographee's reputation.
Discard works no longer popular, especially second and third copies or old best sellers.
Because of space restrictions, backfiles of magazines are generally no more than five years, and newspapers are kept generally no more than several weeks. Exceptions to this practice include magazines in the fields of genealogy, local history, environmental science, social commentary, religious commentary and opinion which may be retained in longer runs as necessary in response to demand. Worn out or damaged, rarely used, trivial and faddish are the general criteria taken into consideration when weeding audio-visual items. Records are weeded somewhat more aggressively given that this is a media the library no longer is supporting through further acquisitions. Weeding should not be a major project undertaken once every several years or when there is no longer room to shelve the materials.