Weed 'em and weep

“Weeding a digital collection has several benefits,” OverDrive chirpily reminds us slackers in the library's Collection Development department who have adopted an out-of-sight, out-of-mind philosophy to our virtual shelves, so with a checkmark in a box and a click on the “Weed Title” button, the deed is done. How marvelously simple! How coldly clinical. So quick and painless! So boring and heartless. Clearly, weeding ebooks, like ordering ebooks, leaves me conflicted.

Take shelf space, for example. What librarian doesn’t dream about infinite shelf space with no squeezing, shifting or weeding required? With ebooks, there are no stern emails from Circulation requesting immediate action in finding space for audiobooks, no ghastly massacre of duplicates, no covetous glances at already-spoken-for shelves. No, with ebooks, space is always available and no one need ever shelve.

And how pristine is each freshly downloaded ebook! Unsullied by the Cheeto-fingered and the Kool-Aid drinkers, the photo thieves and the recipe-rippers, each ebook is clean, intact and blessedly free of stink. Gone are the days of finding squashed flies and bookmarks, prayer cards and homemade coupons for spousal duties; the librarian need not fear the razor blade or the bathtub, the new puppy or Uncle Henry’s three-pack-a-day habit. Every reader his pristine ebook; every ebook its messy reader.

Yet for all their advantages, there is something impersonal about these virtual shelves. Weeding the stacks is such an intimate act, the annual visit to old friends who don’t get out of the house much anymore. The furtive fondling of the thick, butter-soft pages, the perpetual puzzlement that anyone thought yellow plaid made an attractive rebound cover, even the marginalia and brown stains – so revolting in a new book- are somehow as endearing as age spots and wrinkles. Another craven reprieve ("But surely some will check it out this year!") or good wishes for their new life, either way, attention has been paid.

That’s what I miss weeding ebooks. The process feels indifferent. I love being able to order ebooks without thought of space and never worry about their condition, but to weed a print book is to lay on your hands (filthy, naturally, from the physical stacks), and receive a bit of its spirit.