Weeding for the public good? : a quantitative study regarding weeding practices at public libraries in Sweden

The purpose of this bachelor's thesis is to examine how public libraries in Sweden handles their weeding procedures. A series of questions are asked: How does libraries in Sweden motivate weeding? What principles constitutes the procedure of weeding? Which aspects are given most importance when weeding is decided. How does views on weeding differ between libraries of different sizes? How does longer or shorter professional experience influence the view on weeding? The study was done through an online questionnaire which was sent to a number of staff members on different libraries via e-mail. Based upon a previous study by Dilevko and Gottlieb, the staff members were asked to value different alternatives on questions concerning why they weed, criterias used for weeding decisions, reasons why weeding is not done, factors discouraging weeding, what is done with the weeded items and what sort of changes could improve the weeding procedure. Results from the survey confirms physical condition, accuracy of information and circulation as the three prime criteria for weeding. Answers about attitudes towards weeding showed a widespread consensus among library personnel regarding the positive effects of weeding. Additionally, results also show some difference between small- and larger-sized libraries where the small-sized libraries seem to take a rather patron-driven approach to weeding, thus leading to a more market-adapted role. In contrast larger-sized libraries seem to weed more out of a culture-intermediate role, giving qualitative criterias such as accuracy of information larger importance than circulation statistics