My mom was a librarian, my wife was a librarian, my father-in-law was a librarian and my son is a librarian. 

What I liked most about “weeding” was when one of my family brought me a “discard/destroy” weeded book. 

Unfortunately, since I retired I’ve been weeding my stuff. And I think I’ve discarded a bunch of (Bell Labs term) Technical Memoranda that I wrote, the contents of which would likely (possibly?) be of interest to TUHS. I was unaware of its existence until recently. 

 - Alan

> On Nov 25, 2021, at 9:50 AM, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Wed, Nov 24, 2021 at 9:06 PM George Michaelson <ggm@algebras.org> wrote:
>> I have a relative who is an archivist, the sister-discipline to librarians ....
>> 
>> Anyway, She tells me that the primary role of archivists is to help people throw things away.
> George, thank you for the smile both for me and my wife.
> 
> I am married to a former public director - a.k.a. a librarian with the formal degrees to prove it ;-).  She always says weeding the collection is the most important part of the job.  The key is knowing what you can toss, what is being used.  For any library, there is never a enough space to keep everything, but the problem is you can never fully know what will be valuable in the future.
> 
> Anyway, she has been on my case for probably 20 years to 'weed' my collection of things.  A basement flood thanks to Hurricane Elsa this spring has finally forced it.
> 
> Thanks again,
> Clem