Earlier quoted context omitted.
Schools in poor towns don't have multiple levels or basements or even extra storage rooms. What you see is all you get. If there is enough space to have a room full of books, it would be better used as a publicly accessible set of stacks. The only real reason to have a librarian-only room is for books that are rare and valuable.
As I implied elsethread, the solution for that is better funding. Someone needs to take up Carnegie's mantle and finish the job which he began.
A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
41–50 of 181 posts
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#42Maybe publishers could have the right to purchase the books back at current list price or something if they want to block the shredding.
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#43Sensationalism. That's routine collection management. Here's another article about the same library, the Chester Fritz Library, acquiring one of the 11 remaining copies of a 444-year-old book: https://blogs.und.edu/und-today/2026/02/chester-fritz-librar...
Disposing of books bequeathed by a major historical figure, with that person’s underlining etc., is not routine collection management. In my own location, I would expect such books to be moved to closed stacks, or perhaps moved to the national repository library, but not dumpstered. Also, disposing of books when there are not actually space limitations, in order to create the supposed library of the future that has f…
20 years ago when I was in university, this trend was already picking up steam.
First they removed the historical newspaper microfilms (replaced with an online archive which could be searched)
Then the academic journals went online, allowing desk-bound academics to access them online.
Then the paper journals they had on the shelves got older and older, and the library became less and less a place of research, more and more a collection of textbooks for undergraduates and a place for quiet study.
And once the library decided to focus on being a study space, whiteboards and areas for study groups and laptop users became the order of the day. Smart whiteboards and projectors too, this being 20 years ago.
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#44My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…
Our basement was stuffed to the gills with romance novels that nobody was reading anymore, mysteries published decades ago, and kids books that probably related to kids from a previous generation more. This is hardly comparable to difficult philosophy books as mentioned in the article, though. To my mind, the poin of libraries is to house and make accessible difficult or challenging books that might not necessarily b…
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#45> since a state university’s property, even if it’s been deemed trash, cannot be transferred to private individuals. Gotta love how as hundreds of billions of tax dollars are being misappropriated through corruption, state university books about to be trashed can't be taken home supposedly to prevent corruption. Nothing wrong with throwing away books, but let common sense prevail and people take them home. Down with…
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#46My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…
When I got it, I read through it, solid for three days. Wow. Stunning look at a technology in its infancy.
The name of the Bookseller was Luma Kunda. Thank you Mr Kunda. I later learned from someone at the nearby bus stop, that Mr Kunda possessed an eidetic memory.
I would have loved to hear him tell stories about what he saw in the tarot cards.
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#47My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#48My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…
Resources:
https://archive.org/want/?mode=donation_book
https://help.archive.org/help/does-the-internet-archive-have...
https://help.archive.org/help/donate-books-app-for-ios-and-a...
https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donat...
Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library
#49My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…
That only works if all the libraries coordinate to determine which one will hold the last copy, and if the expense of moving such books around on request does not exceed that of storage. Given the number of books I've been unable to find when I wanted them save in the Library of Congress (which won't loan, necessitating a trip to DC, or finding and purchasing my own copy), and the number of times my ILL requests have…
Yale, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, and NYPL coordinate on exactly this https://recap.princeton.edu/