Popularity comes, popularity goes. As librarians we’re always balancing between what will circulate like crazy and what we need to have in the collection. And we’re not the Library of Congress – we can’t (and shouldn’t) keep everything.

An endangered series is one that appears to be waning in terms of popularity. But popularity isn’t everything. Should it stay, or should it go? Or think of it this way – if you were starting a library today, would this series make the cut? Let’s discuss.

The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones

This is a series that I’m willing to bet is still on a ton of shelves. We haven’t seen much circulation with ours lately, so it’s worth taking a look at.

The Case for Keeping:

School stories are a large segment of the early chapter book market. For good reason – they speak to the experiences of students in a way other kinds of books don’t. Bailey School Kids does a nice job of taking school stories and tweaking them, making for engaging reading.

The Case for Not:

It’s sort of a twist on the Case for Keeping: since there are so many school story books, it makes this series seem less essential. And, as is typical for books getting on in years, the covers aren’t helping matters.

Refresh?

A while back, Scholastic reissued the series with updated covers – that can definitely help draw some attention. Those updated versions are still available.

My Verdict:

We still have many of the original paperbacks, but I don’t see us holding on to them for much longer.