Where do de-selected books go to die?
When is a book past its use-by date? And what do we do with it when this occurs? [I know – these are the greatest issues of our times!!].
Up front I am going to say that I don’t have an ‘all possibilities’ answer to these questions, but it is something I’ve been thinking about over the past few weeks through some unrelated prompts.
First up, we were in a very small rural library – town population 700. And sitting out the back ready to be processed was a set of 10 books for the local Book Club. Now when more than 1% of the town’s residents are members of a Book Club you’re kicking goals. But when the annual library budget only allows for $5-6 expenditure per capita on collections you can’t go spending it all on a Book Club that voraciously goes through several books a year. In this library, they don’t. That set of books had been passed on (down?) to them from a metropolitan library service with a very large collection that no longer wanted these books. As the third child in a family of four, part of me feels that small libraries should not be getting hand-me-downs. But a bigger part of me says if that’s what you’ve got to do to give your community access to reasonably new content that they want to read at minimal cost – then go for it. In this case, big tick to both libraries, but not sure I want that relationship to be adopted across the entire collection.
Second, another small rural library service, operating for 1 day a week out of a community-run Neighbourhood House. In one corner is the library collection, maybe 1,500 items trying desperately to cover readers of all ages and interests. On the other side of the room, and all the way from the entrance to the desk at the back, in shelves that reach from floor to ceiling, is the local Book Swap and Buy. All of the books donated by well-meaning community members end up here. Some are very old, but not valuable. Some are highly esoteric, and I suspect that the person who acquired that obscure item in 1973 moved on 10 years ago. These 3,000 ageing books are stuffed in shelves with unusual labels and it all looks a bit tacky in a way that, rather than making the library collection look shiny and new by comparison, seems to bring down the whole tone of the space. A bit like the house-proud gardener with a neighbour who doesn’t notice the grass and weeds until their view of the street is blocked.
Next, a pleasant library with open spaces and colourful signage in the middle of an outdoor shopping mall. It’s a big rectangular box, no architectural awards here, but the first thing you notice as you approach the library is the trestle table out the front with the old books for sale (only $1 each). I know that anything that encourages reading in the community is a good thing, but I think I’d rather attract the passing customers by emphasising the good stuff inside the library more than using the cast-offs to create a first impression. And it’s not as if this is generating critical revenue to keep the library afloat (especially when you factor in the staff time managing the book sale). If you need the few hundred or thousand dollars you make from this to keep the doors open you’ve got bigger issues to deal with than book sales. So if you must have a book sale table, couldn’t it be in a discreet location in the library. The people who want those books will find them wherever they are.
Finally, my parents are in an aged care home and we are sorting through all of the things that once had a home in their house but can’t fit into a couple of cosy 30 sq m rooms. Like 15 boxes of books that were left over after the initial clean-out when all of the family members took the ones they wanted to bulk up their own reading collections. There are some nice stories in those boxes, and lots of interesting facts and figures from the 70s and 80s. But nobody wants them anymore. The Op Shops won’t take them – and fair enough, they only have limited space. As noted above, I am not a fan of people donating books to a public library. The stuff of historical value has already been farmed out. I am not driving them 300km to the neighbourhood house mentioned earlier. The tip doesn’t want them for recycling, even if we ripped the covers off. A bonfire in the Village Square seems over the top, and probably not something that should be encouraged. Which just leaves land fill, from a household where we now manage to send 60%+ of our waste to recycling, compost, re-use, etc.
All of which leaves me with more questions than answers.
But what I will say to my public library colleagues out there is …
You are responsible for delivering a collection that meets the interests of your community.
Therefore, as library professionals, you must take great care in curating your collection: acquisition … promotion … presentation … circulation … de-selection.
I’m not sure that taking book donations from people like me adds anything to your collection other than in the most remarkable circumstances (e.g. local history collection).
I’m not sure that selling off old library stock adds much to the quality of what you do, and it may actually detract from the service you provide.
There’s no shame in sending a book off to another place. The story still lives on in other copies of that book, in other formats and in our memories.
We all have to go sometime, and most of us will end up buried somewhere. It’s not the worst outcome for a well-loved book.