I would like to burn our entire reference collection for the reasons you state below.  However, I have a librarian who disagrees with me and since my wishes do seem a bit extreme, we've compromised on a very modest reference collection of about 4-5 shelves.  When I started four years ago the reference section took up almost an entire wall and, apparently, no one noticed when we reduced it down to less than 1/4 its former size.  As a side note, many of the books we removed from our reference section we just converted to regular circulating items and - wait for it - they still don't circ.  I think the days of going to the library to sit down and look something up in a heavy paper book are over, as are the days when the reference companies issued new editions of their reference books annually.  

Thanks for letting me rant - to your specific questions, the libraries I've worked at back when we had reference sections, updated their books as they were published, not all at once.  We maintained a complete Dewey decimal of reference books, maybe leaning a bit more heavily into areas we thought were of interest to our particular community.

Good luck!

Deb Hemmye
Library Director
Huntington Woods Public Library
26415 Scotia Road
Huntington Woods, MI 48070
248-543-9720, ext. 686

Currently listening to The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans. 





From: "Michlib" <michlib-l@liblists.org>
To: "Michlib" <michlib-l@liblists.org>
Sent: Friday, May 8, 2026 9:48:54 AM
Subject: [Michlib-l] Encyclopedias/Reference Materials?

Hello Librarians,

These questions are aimed more towards the various school-public libraries, but could be applicable to everyone:

How often do you modernize your reference sections? 
  • Is it on a rolling basis, or an all-at-once deal? 
How broad of a reference section do you maintain?
  • Do Mel resources supplement your reference, or have they replaced them?

I would like to structure reference modernization into our acquisitions, but with the prevalence of the internet, we have seen declining use of the resources by our students and public. An attempt at increasing circulation was made some years ago by moving some materials into the non-fiction sections, but that has not helped to a large extent.

Thanks,

Ross

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