Caption: Weeded Magazines. Not pictured: Me shoveling money into a wood chipper. Cuz that's crazy.

The discarded. The unwanted. The Weeded. We don't keep everything forever at the library, you know. We have to get rid of some our "shit" once in awhile. Or in some cases, on a regular basis.

Magazines are weeded from our system according to a schedule. Monthly magazines are shucked once they're six months or older. Weeklies get dumped every three months. All of these end up on the free magazine shelf, to be sorted through and pawed over by various individuals who come into the branch and for multitudinous reasons. It's no unusual sight to see people carrying armfuls of these "free" magazines out to their cars; admittedly to the relief of those who work here and who sometimes cast a woeful eye to the overflowing free magazine shelf. It can get a little messy.

So, what's the point of all this, you might ask? And I'd say, what? You're not interested in what happens to magazines that live in the library? Actually, I'd probably say: I'm just bitching. But truthfully, you should care. At least a little bit. After all, your tax dollars fund the library and that includes it's acquisitions. Acquisitions like magazines. Take a gander at some of the magazines in that row at the top. Wow, some of 'em look kind of fresh considering they've been in circulation for at least six months. Okay, maybe you think they don't look that fresh. Well, they certainly look very, very fresh in comparison with some of our more popular titles - you can trust me on that. Weeding is one of my jobs here at the library and I've been doing it for almost as long as I've been here, which is three years in August.

Certain magazines are consistently unpopular; a lot it probably depends on which branch they call home, but other factors come into play as well. Some of the titles pictured above are checked out once or less per item at their home branch. That's not a very good return on an investment, especially one doomed to end up on a free shelf after 3-6 months.

So, you have to question why a library system would consistently and essentially chunk money into a wood chipper via subscriptions for magazines that are never checked out. I mean, these are the same people who take a hard line on the temperature at each branch and, in times of past fiscal hardship, forced their employees to bring their own toilet tissue.