National Library of New Zealand discarding books

[Extollager]

"...the world’s moved on, and we don’t need to keep these," says the National Librarian.

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

That rationale makes me uneasy. Who says? Who says the direction the world has moved means they should get rid of books that don't fall in with that direction (?)?

I don't know. I do know that, a few years ago, when I was completing my collection -- mostly by making photocopies -- of the novels of Phyllis Paul, the National Library of New Zealand was the one library on the planet that had, or would loan, the book I needed. I doubt it had been much checked out. Perhaps my (rather, my borrowing library's) use of the book will save it from being discarded.

Phyllis Paul: Twice Lost, Pulled Down, Invisible Darkness, A Little Treachery, more

Phyllis Paul (1903-1973) is, at this time, necessarily a "cult novelist" in that nearly all of her books are so hard to get hold of that those who have read more than one of them and want to talk about their reading will find few others who have read more than one. One or two of her novels...

www.sffchronicles.com

Put a different way, if I waited till, say, 2025 to try to get the book, would I have been able to, at any price?

Sure, libraries "can't save everything," but I still kind of felt a bit of icicle in the stomach about this.

 

[CupofJoe]

It looks like they are doing the due diligence in trying to find other options.
I work at a university. In previous years it was a regular sight to see skips full of books as out of date books were removed. I have even skip-dived to reclaim one or two. There had to be room for the new editions.
And then a few years ago. the library expanded and got rid of even more books as digital options became available. It is the third space talked about in the article. Students [and a few staff] all but live in the place.

 

[Bick]

This is one of those times when my dual British-New Zealand citizenship rather slopes into the background, and I consider myself British*. I also find this sort of thing unsettling. In a similar vein, when being shown round a particular high school on an open day for my son, the teacher proudly informed us, as we entered a new building, that this was the new school library. There were computers wherever I looked. There were no visible books however. When I inquired where the books were, I was told they didn’t have books much anymore as they’d replaced them with ‘digital resources’. That made the school choice gratifyingly easy. My son goes to a different school.

* Of course when it comes to certain British politician’s deficiencies i tend to favour my kiwi citizenship. I guess dual-citizenship can be useful!

 

[Artoriarius]

As a librarian, I can understand her position, for the most part; getting rid of books is a common thing.* There’s just... only so much space for books, you know? One has to make decisions as to what one can keep and what one has to give away. I don’t agree with the “The world’s moved on” argument, because as a Stoic, I regularly reread works written long, long before a single one of those books was written; but as for the “they’re not being used, and we want the space to expand our other collections” argument—I can agree with that. Like I said, there’s only so much space; you have to prioritise, and something has to lose out when you do that. Getting rid of the rarely-read books to expand the collections that people are interested in is an obvious choice. I also appreciate the difficulty of giving books away—believe me, it’s a lot harder to get people to take free books than you’d think, particularly when you’ve got a lot of them. So I am fairly sympathetic; they don’t want to toss the books out, but if they can’t get rid of them any other way... well, what else can they do? Keep books people rarely touch out of misplaced sentimentality, and settle for not getting more of the books people do express an interest in? That’s not a better solution, in my eyes.

* Generally I donate them, or if they’re unlikely to be taken,** I use them for art projects—I only toss them if they’re dangerously damaged*** or dangerously deluded.****
** Like old dictionaries, partial encyclopedia sets, and old/dull magazines.
*** We had some serious flooding a year or two before I started working, and I found a few of the picture books that still had a bad mould problem.
**** Such as works that promote conspiracy theories, objectivism, racism, sexism, and all sorts of other nasty little -isms that make the world a worse place for everyone.

 

[Extollager]

That school visit, Bick, is frightening.

 

[Montero]

Our local library - so town library - every so often has a trolley full of books with a big notice "use them or lose them". Which then explains that these books are rarely borrowed and if you want them to continue having shelf space, take them out on loan. This trolley will then be followed a month later by a trolley full of books for sale.
That being said, I thought the British Library kept one copy of every book ever printed in the UK. Might have that wrong, but that was what I thought. And I'm sure a while back that the Library of Congress was archiving tweets as being an interesting social record.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The library system I use, though not as much as I use to, allows you to get books from other libraries through an Interlibrary Loan program. Theoretically this allows at least one library to have a copy of a book, while the others remove the book from their system. This seems to run more by chance than by the libraries jointly deciding what they keep and don't keep. Books do wear out and money isn't available to replace older books and to buy newer books at the same time. As more libraries are added to the database, the search is getting better, though you have to do some of the sorting yourself as just the author's name does not bring up one single list. You can find books faster by using the title. The drawback with that is that you need to know the title in advance, which can be found listed in other web sites. For an author like John Brunner, the farther away from my location a library is located, the more likely I will find a copy of one of his books. That could be happening because the area I am in has more money to buy new books which push the older books off the shelves.

 

[hitmouse]

Our local library - so town library - every so often has a trolley full of books with a big notice "use them or lose them". Which then explains that these books are rarely borrowed and if you want them to continue having shelf space, take them out on loan. This trolley will then be followed a month later by a trolley full of books for sale.
That being said, I thought the British Library kept one copy of every book ever printed in the UK. Might have that wrong, but that was what I thought. And I'm sure a while back that the Library of Congress was archiving tweets as being an interesting social record.

The BL does keep a physical copy of (almost) all newly published books, as does the LOC. Hence the ISBN and LOC catalogue numbers.
The main BL building near St Pancras is well worth a visit for the spectacle and for the exhibitions, but BL has vast storage offsite, which is where most of the stock is kept.

One of my close friends is a senior university librarian. The bulk of purchases are learned journals, and these have mainly become electronic over the last few years. Apart from subscribing to physical copies of some of the really big ones (Nature, Science, etc) he spends a lot of time negotiating contracts with publishers for e-journals. The same with undergraduate textbooks where multiples are needed, and which have to be updated routinely. I think this is understandable. I suspect that miles of stack shelving have been cleared by binning old journals that are never accessed except electronically now.

 

[Ambrose]

The problem of some journals available electronically is that the publisher allows full text access only after 2 or 3 years, to preserve the hard copy sale.

 

[Astro Pen]

 

[Bick]

**** Such as works that promote conspiracy theories, objectivism, racism, sexism, and all sorts of other nasty little -isms that make the world a worse place for everyone.

I’m not sure how I feel about this… I guess it depends to some extent on who’s making the decision, but the current cancel culture would not extend to libraries I would hope, which should be the last bastion of free-speech.

 

[Extollager]

I’m not sure how I feel about this… I guess it depends to some extent on who’s making the decision, but the current cancel culture would not extend to libraries I would hope, which should be the last bastion of free-speech.

Agreed.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

 

[pogopossum]

The library system I use, though not as much as I use to, allows you to get books from other libraries through an Interlibrary Loan program. Theoretically this allows at least one library to have a copy of a book, while the others remove the book from their system. This seems to run more by chance than by the libraries jointly deciding what they keep and don't keep. Books do wear out and money isn't available to replace older books and to buy newer books at the same time. As more libraries are added to the database, the search is getting better, though you have to do some of the sorting yourself as just the author's name does not bring up one single list. You can find books faster by using the title. The drawback with that is that you need to know the title in advance, which can be found listed in other web sites. For an author like John Brunner, the farther away from my location a library is located, the more likely I will find a copy of one of his books. That could be happening because the area I am in has more money to buy new books which push the older books off the shelves.

I was a public librarian for 35 years. Local libraries must cull books for reasons of space. Central libraries and interlibrary loan however is an answer that can and should be encouraged everywhere. I have the luxury of living in a US state that actually funds our libraries at the highest per capita rate of any state in my the country. (I could describe why, but it has to do with politics. Ohio doesn't support other social or educational services at all well.) Inter and central main branches almost always come through.
I almost never have a problem finding classics, relatively new releases and rare and hard to find works. At my local branch? Rarely.
The problems of electronic media have been described above.
For technical and specialized works it can provide great access. It also requires money. And hard copy provides material that is not always otherwise accessible. So mixed systems make a lot of sense. But they all require money. If you want a literate, educated public and particularly the ability to provide material to the less affluent, you better come up with some $$$ (or lira, or pounds, or - - - -)

 

[hitmouse]

The problem of some journals available electronically is that the publisher allows full text access only after 2 or 3 years, to preserve the hard copy sale.

Which ones?
None of the several dozen academic journals I reference routinely have that policy. They make lots of money through individual or institutional subscriptions, or by charging for individual full-text papers.

 

[Ambrose]

The journals that I use that have the 2-3 year embargo are on legal matters.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

As someone who studied as history, worked in museums and worked in archaeology for a time, just how boring would history and archaeology be if we kept everything? Part of the fun of it all is the gaps.

Even with museums they have to edit stock when their stores are full.

 

[Bick]

As someone who studied as history, worked in museums and worked in archaeology for a time, just how boring would history and archaeology be if we kept everything? Part of the fun of it all is the gaps.

History and archeology would be more boring if the Library of Alexandria hadn’t burned down (as an example)? Really?

 

[Robert Zwilling]

If we did know everything that happened in the past there would probably be a lot more arguing going on.

 

[Montero]

If we did know everything that happened in the past there would probably be a lot more arguing going on.

As opposed to arguments which can't be resolved as there are three ways to interpret the few facts left?
As a re-enactor I sat and listened to brisk discussions about the number of people likely to be able to afford to wear boots, and the style said boots were likely to take, plus the layout of the studs on the leather soles.

 

[Brian G Turner]

History and archeology would be more boring if the Library of Alexandria hadn’t burned down (as an example)? Really?

Not quite the same - I suspect she's talking about shards of Iron Age pottery rather than single-copy literature.