To promote growth of knowledge, old books must be weeded out

The hardest lesson that a librarian has to learn in graduate school and then act upon on the job is collection upkeep and weeding of materials. The easy part is knowing what to get rid of; the hard part is actually pulling the book off the shelf, withdrawing it from the collection and then taking it down to the Dumpster. We are bibliophiles. We love books! That is very much a part of why we work in libraries. We also know that mold is dangerous to books and people. Misinformation can be dangerous as well. Medical books that are 10 years old do not take into account all that has been learned over those years. Wouldn't it be far worse to read that the diagnosis your doctor just gave you was incurable because when the book was written a cure h