Some of the boys at school kept asking me where the gun books were, and after weeks of protesting that this is a school library and we wouldn’t have books about weapons, I figured out what they were talking about.

It’s from 1963. I actually found a stockpile of books about weapons from the 50’s and 60’s. They were added to the pile of goodies in the “yard sale” I had in the library this week.

I’ve been clearing out some old gems to make shelf room for some reorganizing I want to do, and I’ve found some fascinating things. My predecessor was an absolutely fabulous librarian, and also like a lot of librarians she kept everything. The library is 7 years old, and these things moved into the new space instead of into storage or recycling.

Part of this cleanup is the asthmatic in me trying to make the space as lung-friendly as I can, part of it is just bringing the space up to date. I cleared out 8 sets of encyclopedias, lots of duplicate posters, old magazines. I also found six of these, which will be recycled soon:

This was bought with Campbell’s soup labels in 1982. This stuff is so cool, but it’s time to move on.

I had a couple of protests from teachers who hate to see things thrown away (everything is actually being recycled), but I encouraged them to take what they wanted. And most of the teachers seemed to like the “yard sale,” they picked up some stuff that will serve them better in their classrooms than in the library. So overall it was a win. It’s time to let these things go, I think.