
Why are libraries destroying books? (2002) - mhb
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/mar/22/museums.referenceandlanguages
======
jdietrich
One of my local libraries recently threw out a dumpster full of books. There
was a minor public outcry at the desecration of literature. The books in the
dumpster had all been on sale for the last year, priced at 10p (13 cents)
each. Most of them hadn't been checked out for over a decade and some hadn't
been checked out since the 1970s.

Sending books to be pulped is always sad, but the truth is that there are just
too many books. A researcher doesn't gain a great deal of benefit from seeing
an original paper copy; in most cases, they'd prefer a digital copy.
Preserving paper is inherently more expensive than preserving microfiche or
digital scans. Librarians love books, that's why they became librarians, but
sometimes it's just not possible to justify the shelf space for something that
nobody is ever likely to read.

~~~
394549
> Sending books to be pulped is always sad, but the truth is that there are
> just too many books.

Often it's not obsolete books that are destroyed, where there might be 1,000
other copies out there, but one-of-a-kind archival records:

>> The core of the book recounts Baker's attempt, in 1999, to persuade the
British Library not to junk more than 2,000 bound volumes of American
newspapers - the last remaining copies in the world - including a complete run
of the Chicago Tribune from 1888 to 1958 and hundreds of editions of Joseph
Pulitzer's ground-breaking colour broadsheet of the 1890s, the New York World.

> A researcher doesn't gain a great deal of benefit from seeing an original
> paper copy; in most cases, they'd prefer a digital copy. Preserving paper is
> inherently more expensive than preserving microfiche or digital scans.

Maybe now, but preservation isn't about now, it's about the distant future.
Paper is one of the few storage mediums that has proven longevity and also
requires no special reading hardware. Microfiche is probably OK (there was an
article recently that stated it could lat 500 years), but I'd dispute
_strongly_ that "preserving paper is inherently more expensive than preserving
... digital scans." Digital data requires massive amounts of infrastructure to
be usable (hardware, software, storage media, and reading hardware), and the
rapid pace of change of that infrastructure means that _enormous, continuous
efforts_ must be made to keep it readable in the future. Seal a newspaper up
in a wall and it'll still be readable in 100 years. If you stop your digital
preservation efforts for that long, you've lost everything.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_preservation)

~~~
cimmanom
To what degree is preservation the responsibility of a local lending library?
(As opposed to an archive; a museum; the Library of Congress; county
courthouses; etc?)

~~~
394549
> To what degree is preservation the responsibility of a local lending
> library? (As opposed to an archive; a museum; the Library of Congress;
> county courthouses; etc?)

Personally, I would say even local lending libraries have a part to play in
preservation. They may have copies of local periodicals that exist nowhere
else. They should at least do some due diligence with other, more common,
items to make sure they don't discard anything that's potentially _now_ unique
or rare (e.g. a collection of unfashionable midcentury children's books that
all libraries decided to purge around the same time). Stuff like that should
be kept in an out of the way warehouse or something.

A local lending library shouldn't have to keep seldom used books in easily
accessible circulation, but I feel there should be other options besides that,
pulping, and digitization.

~~~
cimmanom
Still not sure the local library should be responsible for the actual
preservation, but I like your idea on principle -- maybe having a more central
organization or archive handle the preservation and coordinate determining
what needs preserving (e.g. how is that local library to know that every other
library in the country pulped that particular children's book 10 years ago?)

------
SketchySeaBeast
This seems to be hoarding by proxy.

I understand the value of storing the information, but the paper medium itself
doesn't typically hold value to me. Is there value in preserving an
idiosyncratic style of bound book? Absolutely. Preserving a literal ton of
regular old newspapers? Not so much. Let's digitize em and give the libraries
room to further modernize so that they can stay relevant.

~~~
mkirklions
Very rational people here.

The moment you tap on libraries, every employee at the library goes on
facebook and calls moms to revolt.

Its emotion driven, and as a result a political tool.

~~~
tokai
Every librarian worth their salt knows that weeding is just as important as
selection and acquisition. The most emotional people in regards to weeding are
often people that read too little, but idolize the object of the book.

~~~
mkirklions
See this topic where even tech nerds are idolizing books...

------
chris_mc
Libraries throw away tons of books and stuff. If a man-made object is degraded
to the point where it's garbage, why not? Sure, some of these tomes may have
been recoverable, but if they aren't historically valuable for some reason,
why save it? Same thing with any "historical" object, do you imagine that
we'll want to save a copy of "Getting done in my butt by my butt" when it's
old and yellowing just because it's old?

Of course, that's not the point of the article, the article's point is that
they recorded it on microfilm and now that's going bad, too. The headline here
is awful, as any library worker will tell you libraries destroy books all the
time for really good reasons.

~~~
ryanmercer
>If a man-made object is degraded to the point where it's garbage, why not?
Sure, some of these tomes may have been recoverable

Or hasn't been checked out in years, or is grossly outdated then why waste
physical space to preserve it. Sure, some patrons might find novelty in there
being a book that mentions all 48 states of the U.S. bbbbuutttt there's 50
now. Or 'hey we've got 12 copies of The Da Vinci Code, no one has checked it
out in 3 months... perhaps we should get rid of 11 of them'.

In a private collection, sure. In a library, ehhhhh a public library's mission
isn't to preserve a given work in perpetuity.

Also in my experience libraries will attempt to sell the books first at fairly
regular sales (I used to horde allowance and paper route money to go buy tons
of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks when I was a kid for 10-50 cents a
pop, it's how I discovered Stephen R. Donaldson and the Thomas Covenant books,
I thought the paperback cover of Lord Foul's Bane looked evil and creepy. How
I discovered Heinlein too) then only throw away what is truly damaged or
didn't sell to make space for newer texts.

~~~
FiatLuxDave
Not all books that are read are checked out. I think that some kinds of books
should have a sheet or something so each person who reads it in the library
can leave a mark. I'm still angry about the Dirac library moving a beautiful
1890's book on steam engineering to storage because "no one was checking it
out". Of course no one was checking it out, it was a reference work!

~~~
dredmorbius
Some libraries do run reshelving carts through circ to note internal
circulation. Even if only occasionally (sampling).

------
iamthepieman
I serve on the board of an incorporated library and until just recently was
the board president.

We have a book sale room that is about 250 square feet of well lit, clean dry
space in our basement with an exterior entrance. We make a few hundred bucks a
year from selling books from the sale room. A volunteer staffs the book sale
room and organizes, shelves and prices the books. Even with the book sale
room, which is open anytime the library is open, we have to throw out hundreds
of books a year. It's not worth it to give them away. The local thrift shops
and good wills mostly don't want more books.

The space would better serve the community if it were made into a maker space
or turned into a classroom for special programs. We could make the entire year
of book sale revenue with one by donation 4 week class.

One of the biggest tasks our librarians have is culling books. We are small
and it does not serve our community if we keep books on the shelves that
haven't been checked out in 15 years.

------
aurizon
The University of Toronto has a 'cull and sell' procedure and culled books are
placed in the weekly Wednesday noon swap shop where anyone can buy all they
can carry for a $1 donation. At the last swap for the season in May there were
15 large wheeled boxes of about 1 cubic yard each filled to the brim and
another 20 trash totes a little bigger in the yard. Few sell. There is a
steady crowd of people picking at them. I suspect their fate is pulp after
they have been well picked. There used to be huge numbers of old computers
etc. in the swap shop, but after a number of people cut themselves on sharp
steel edges, they now accumulate and allow department employees only to scan
and fill out a card so their department gets the asset if it has any enduring
value - if not taken = scrapped by a recycling company approved for proper
recycling of computers etc. Another complication was the development of the
sulfite pulping process in the 1800's. This leaves residues of SO2 in the
paper, which combined with H2O makes H2SO3 - sulfurous acid. This is a weak
acid, but in time it cuts up cellulose and the paper is weakened and friable -
eventually it turns to dust. Old linen paper or paper that has been washed and
treated/sized to eliminate the SO2 (archival paper) can last a lot longer

------
btrettel
The University of Texas at Austin seems to put a lot in storage instead of
throwing it out. But they have thrown things I am interested in out before. I
recall checking the catalog for a well known journal which has been entirely
digitized. Unfortunately a plot that had data I wanted was illegible, so I
went to scan the plot. Apparently they had just thrown out the journal a day
or so before I arrived and had not updated the catalog to reflect that yet. I
was very confused as there was nothing at all where the journal should have
been. Fortunately a librarian was able to figure out what happened. I can
recall them saying "I knew something like this would happen..." I eventually
got a scan via interlibrary loan.

------
clumsysmurf
Recently donated some new philosophy books to my public library (A.C. Grayling
Philosophy 1 & 2) but even in mint condition, and the library having almost no
philosophy section, it still went to the 'bargain / to be sold cart'. I was
told that all the books are managed by a private company, and the library
doesn't really control what comes or goes - the company does. So any / all
donations go straight to the cart, no matter what they are.

------
pschon
I let the used bookstore throw away my books. There are lots of categories
they say they won't accept (like computers) but I bring them all. I tell them
to just give me a total price. They don't give me back any books. I really do
not like throwing away books.

------
HillaryBriss
It's interesting that one of the ideas this article criticizes is _a
harebrained combination of closed-circuit television and a "pneumatic page
turner", intended to allow readers to study a book in a library many miles
away so that only one copy would need to be kept._

Yet, I think this basic idea was implemented in the _digital_ realm by iTunes
(or someone else) in recent years so that each person would not individually
need their own copy of some music file. Instead, they would just stream it
from an iTunes server.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Ironically, out of these two, it's _iTunes_ that's more harebrained.
Considering that digital storage is almost free, and it's wasteful to transfer
bits across half the planet each time you want to listen to a particular song
again, streaming is a... pretty suboptimal solution. Especially that you
essentially relinquish ownership of your own media, being instead at the mercy
of a service provider. Alas, this was the way to work around the huge mess
that is IP laws.

~~~
c4h8o3del
> Alas, this was the way to work around the huge mess that is IP laws.

Or, and I realize this is a long shot, we could come to the realization that
"intellectual property" is an oxymoron.

Small hope, I know.

~~~
err4nt
I'd love to hear more about why intellectual property is an oxymoron - you
have piqued my interest :D

~~~
dredmorbius
"Copyright has become the single most serious impediment to access to
knowledge". Copyright scholar Pamela Samuelson.

[http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Aaron-Swartz-
Opening-a...](http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Aaron-Swartz-Opening-
access-to-knowledge-4224697.php)

Joseph Stiglitz, "Knowledge as a Global Public Good," in Global Public Goods:
International Cooperation in the 21st Century, Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg,
Marc A. Stern (eds.), United Nations Development Programme, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999, pp. 308-325.

[http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343...](http://s1.downloadmienphi.net/file/downloadfile6/151/1384343.pdf)

What the academic publishing industry calls "theft" the world calls
"research": Why Sci-Hub is so popular

[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_th...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_the_academic_publishing_industry_calls_theft/)

------
emodendroket
A lot of this discussion revolves around lending libraries getting rid of junk
nobody wants to read and which is likely available elsewhere, but the article
largely concerns destroying the world's only copies of newspaper runs, which
seems different in kind to me.

Also, with digital stuff perhaps the calculus is different (although long-term
preservation of that seems like a potential challenge), but they're on to
something when they say microfiche copies are inferior.

------
donbright
The crux of the library in 2018 is exemplified here. It is important to have
public input to the weeding process (thats what it is called in the US),
because libraries are inherently hierarchical government bureaucracies, but
funded by taxpayers, so taxpayers should have a say. Those books are
essentially taxpayer property.

It is also true that the information inside those books is also taxpayer
property, but right now the taxpayers can't access it because the Library
industry, including it's professional organizations and professional
educational programs, is technologically illiterate, but also lost sight of
it's mission.

This fellow is called a crank, but he is cranking up the wrong tree. While he
is complaining about a small number of important paper journals, and hoarders
decry weeding, Alexandra Elbakyan is being threatened with prison for giving
away taxpayer funded information - to the taxpayers. And Aaron Swartz... well.
Rest in peace man. They just straight up killed him.

There is a saying that for books to survive, what they need is for an enormous
amount of people to copy them. That is what allowed the ancient Roman works to
survive, long after the Roman libraries were burnt down, and all the Roman
bureaucracies in charge of maintaining important works had disappeared. That's
why we can read old copies of the Bible or the Koran or the I Ching. That's
why we have civilization, because people shared ideas instead of fighting
about who, in the long run, far after useful value has been passed to the
creator, actually owns them.

It's the modern way in which copyright is enforced, as though violators were
terrorists, whether through the military or legal system or NDAs or
intimidation, that's a much bigger threat to information surviving the long
run, than librarians maintaining their stacks improperly.

------
kazinator
Library books should definitely destroy shelf litter, like your 900 page
"Java: The Complete Reference [2001]" type stuff.

[Edit: When I wrote the above comment, had no idea whether or not this is a
real book; I made up the title and the [2001] just to exemplify that sort of
junk.]

~~~
Theodores
In 100 years time this book will become of great interest to historians that
are studying the dot com boom and wanting insight beyond the newspaper
headlines of the era. What was it that powered this dot com thing?

Why was so much money speculated into it?

How hard was it to write code for the early web?

Where is the seminal classic concerning how to program in the language of the
era?

Why did 'kazinator' say 'burn that book?'(!)

All this future historian might have to go on could be the review on Amazon,
as preserved by the Wayback Machine:

For a supposedly easy-to-use language Java has generated a range of enormous
books. The ever excellent Schildt continues the tradition--even allowing for
the added coverage of Java 1.3--in this 1,000+ word tome.

Schildt divides the book into four parts. The first third is a solid tutorial
on Java programming with neat code examples showing how various features work.
Nearly half is taken up with a detailed view of the Java Library followed by
150 pages on Java software development. The last section dissects four Java
applets.

Although described as a reference, Java 2: The Complete Reference is a lot
more than a list of facts. There's advice, demonstrations of best practice,
asides for those using languages such as C and C++ and a pleasant absence of
the justifications for various Java design decisions which clog so many books
on the subject. Schildt takes the line that Java is the future for Net and
networked programs. Coming from perhaps the best-selling writer on C and C++
this is more than interesting. It's a pity Microsoft didn't read it. Perhaps
it would have changed its mind about supporting Java.

One oddity is the way Schildt gives more coverage to the largely superseded
AWT, the Abstract Window Toolkit, than to its easier and more flexible
replacement, Swing. However, both are big areas; perhaps Schildt thinks you
should be reading books dealing specifically with these subjects. He'll
probably write one. --Steve Patient

Review

First developed in 1991, Java is an excellent first language for the aspiring
programmer because of its growing popularity in the development community;
seasoned pros will find it easy to learn. Primary among this revised edition's
offerings is information on the recently released Java 1.3, known as the 2.0
in the techie world becuase it represents such a major upgrade. Schildt, a
renowned programming author, skillfully combines code, theory, and reference
matter. Libraries that already own the third edition (1999) should purchase,
as Java 1.3 is the only version that Sun Microsystems now supports.

~~~
kazinator
My comment isn't actually about this specific book; I made the title up
impromptu, and so it refers to a category of book in my imagination. (See
comment edit.) Of course, that specific book constitutes an example of what
I'm talking about.

I recognize the author as a well-known butcher of the C language. Future
historians wanting to completely understand the term "bullschildt" will
benefit from access to his books.

------
fipple
I also have an emotional reaction to seeing books destroyed but the bottom
line is that many products in this world see demand reduce precipitously,
rendering them obsolete. There simply aren’t many ways to use a computer
monitor from 1985 or a book about the immune system from 1937.

------
brightball
I would be interesting if there was some type of public disclosure requirement
before this type of thing happened. It seems like a perfect setup to allow the
general public to collect them.

~~~
imgabe
Libraries will often hold used book sales where they try to unload books they
no longer want.

~~~
emodendroket
Sounds like the OP envisions something more systematic

------
corerius
Since libraries in any town I frequent have tended to turn into internet cafes
and homeless shelters, they might as well dump the books to make space for a
few more computers.

------
tranchms
They should’ve been donating the books to less fortunate libraries or
education institutions.

~~~
lizknope
This post is literally from yesterday.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17634079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17634079)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/micro...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/07/microfilm-
lasts-half-a-millennium/565643/?single_page=true)

"Microfilm machines haven’t been mined for their decontextualized parts, and
they are not yet truly obsolete. The devices are still in widespread use, and
their mechanical simplicity could help them last longer than any of the
current electronic technologies."

~~~
Symbiote
I like the bit in one of Asimov's _Foundation_ novels, where they find a
derelict planet, essentially dead for several millenia, yet quickly find the
library and repair the microfilm machine.

------
phendrenad2
Most public libraries would be better off without books. All of the books in
the average public library exist in digital form.

However, go to a college library, and you’ll find tens of thousands of books
which are not only not available in digital form, they may be the only
remaining copies in existence.

Every time I go to the local college library I’m blown away by the number of
obscure books on programming and computer science that simply don’t exist in
ebook form, and likely never will (thanks copyright laws!)

~~~
mkirklions
I am in complete agreement.

Physical books are outdated technology that are bad for the environment and
outdated the moment they are printed.

Its a very emotional thing to support the library, I'm not sure why it invokes
such strong feelings with children/moms, but I dont think its a smart decision
to continue wasting space and resources on physical books.

Note: Nothing is black and white. There should be a strong middle-ground here.

~~~
the_af
> "outdated the moment they are printed"

Maybe (some) technical books, but novels are never outdated.

