In recent years, library weeding projects have become increasingly controversial, even resulting in staff mutinies, firings, the resignation and firing of directors. Even when the library’s staff and director have taken care to follow established guidelines, they are accused of censorship, book burning, and destroying public property. How can you safeguard your next weeding initiative and keep it from making local headlines?

Outcomes:

• Create external support team for community relations.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate.

• Promote collection development and weeding education for everyone, including staff, board, community, and local (and social) media.

• Provide formal feedback on strategic goals from community and staff.

**If you need live captioning to participate in this online session, please email the organizer Lauren Clossey (lauren.clossey@ncdcr.gov) at least fourteen business days before the event.

Presented by Pat Wagner:

Pat Wagner has been a trainer, educator, and consultant for 45 years with clients in 49 states and Canada. She is a management consultant and instructional producer at Pattern Research, Inc. Pat has worked with enterprises in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, from federal agencies and Ivy League universities to elected city councils and rural community colleges, from Fortune 500 companies to family-run retail stores, and from the Library of Congress to storefront public libraries. She is known for her practical and good-humored face-to-face and online programs. Her focus: libraries, higher ed, local government, nonprofits, and small businesses. Pat has been a performance poet, playwright, printer, small press publisher, and graphic designer, and loves books, cats, wildlife, gardens, music, and the arts.