This is one of the reasons I have piles of books in my basement left over from our SF book business. I couldn’t bring myself to tear the covers off perfectly good books and destroy them in order to get credit for returning them. Although it did mean that every so often someone trolling our racks at a convention would be able to pick up a slightly shopworn out-of-print book they had given up on ever finding.
…And not one defender of the written word has asked:
“What the Hell Kind of Person Looks Through Their Neighbors Garbage on the Way To Work?” 
Okay guys, hate to be another parade rainer, but I’ll be another one to say: libraries weed. They’re supposed to, and they’re supposed to do it with iron heart. And sometimes when they weed, they have to throw shit out. Sure, you try posting it on a Needs and Offers list, but if nobody wants it, nobody wants it.
Also, certain libraries are not allowed to sell or give books away, and sometimes things like gift books are given with strings attached - we’re limited on what we can do with them.
And to all of you moaning “Oh, somebody would have taken it!” Bullshit. Unless you’ve got hundreds of linear feet of book space just dying to hold the National Union Catalog. What, you don’t? Well, we don’t either.
None of which excuses embarassments like the San Francisco debacle. And we try to do things like implement off-site storage in university libraries, because it’s more a part of an academic library’s mission to preserve the cultural record than it is a public library’s. But sometimes we throw things out, and that’s entirely right and proper. The bad thing is that we have to be so damned sneaky about it sometimes because people don’t understand that.
My two local libraries have rooms or halls set aside for “weeded” books, set out for sale. They keep them there for years. If no one wants them, they go to the local used bookshop, hospital or nursing home.
If I sent a nursing home a bajillian volumes of the National Union Catalog the old ladies would come over and beat me to death with their walkers. These are not all old cool interesting books - some of them are, for example, outdated finding aids.
What?! Why? What, pray tell, do they think is “appropriate reading material for the elderly”?
Man, this is another, separate rant for me. It burns me up to hear about the staff of nursing homes and retirement communities dictating to the residents. [hijack]There was an incident back when I lived in PA, where a retirement home told the male residents they couldn’t wear shorts because nobody wanted to see their legs. “That’s great,” I thought. “So these guys lived through the Depression, and all that that implied. Then they served in WWII, where they had to wear uniforms. Then they got out of the service and had to wear uniforms again, either for the post office or whatever, or the corporate uniform: the Grey Flannel Suit. They survived the seventies as well, sweltering in polyester…and now (in the '90s), they think they’re finally free to wear what they want, but they still can’t.”[/hijack]
So it sounds like the same thing here. “Wow, now I finally have time to read whatever I want!” “Uh, no, you can’t. WE dictate what you can read. Don’t like it? Time for your meds!” What bullshit.
I know the feeling. I got one paperback one time that was in big box with some others that I wanted. I started to read that one, and stopped after about ten pages and proceeded to shred the sucker - and I burned the pieces. Such vile, nasty, evilness I’ve never seen before or since in a work of fiction.
The rest of the books I kept, but that one just had to go.
Count me in with those who thinks you’re blowing this way out of proportion.
I like books, too. I like to buy books, to read books, to re-read books, and I even have a very small set of books which I keep just for the sake of collecting them. But I’m in academia. I move a lot. In the past seven years I’ve lived in Vancouver, Pasadena, Princeton (two separate addresses), and Toronto. I’ve moved across the continent twice in that time period, and I plan to do so again in three weeks. And let me tell you, there comes a time when the books start to look less like the source of all that is good, true, and cuddly, and more like DEAD FUCKING WEIGHT.
There are two boxes of books on the balcony right now that sat in a cellar in my parents house for a decade because I didn’t have the means to transport them 3000 miles on a whim. Some of them I haven’t even read. Some of them are books on mathematics that I received as gifts for winning a competition in high school; they’ve never been used as textbooks anywhere. I doubt they would sell at a thrift store, the only used bookstore near me stopped taking donations long ago because they’re overstocked, and I find the idea that my local library would want them to be laughable. I sure as hell am not taking them with me when I move; my wife has already packed five boxes of books and there are more waiting, covering the living room carpet and stacked ten high. And I have better things to do than haul my books to the post office for some E-bay customer in who-knows-where. So what’s going to happen to them?
Probably I’m going to haul them to the thrift store, where they’ll sit for another decade but at least they won’t be my problem. But I may choose to throw them out instead. And I’m pretty sure no one will miss them if I do.
Er… people who are defending the throwing out of books…
I think most of us bibliophiles realize that it can’t be helped. I agree that not all books should be kept. It’s understandable in cases of outdated information, or the books are ruined or absolute dreck.
I myself only buy books rarely and cull my bookshelf for books I know I won’t read again. These I take to the second-hand bookstores and trade for more or I donate and as a last resort, if no one will take them, I toss them. I think a fair bit of the people here would agree with that.
I got the impression the books Eve found were perfectly good books, ones that could probably have easily been taken to a second hand store or given away but instead were left out in the rain. I’d be outraged at that too. Especially as I live in a place where you can take the ones no one else wants and drop them at the grocery store book exchange. Gone, and probably shared with others.
Stuff like national geographic are a different matter… all those magazines! I’d just toss them myself.
There is a huge book fair in my city every year where they put up a giant tent in a shopping center parking lot and have tables and tables full of books donated by the citizenry. The proceeds are used for mentally challenged youth.
I wanted to dispose of some college texts that I hadn’t referenced since graduation many years ago and thought I’d donate them to this group. I called to ask what they did with the books that didn’t sell - did they store them until next year’s sale or what. They told me they threw them out.
I still have my books.
.
Those National Geographics…toss’em my way. I think I’m gonna start collecting them again.
I really don’t see the big deal, here. Yes, it would be nice to find the books new homes instead of throwing them out, but no more so than any other bit of media. Would anyone complain this much about someone throwing out a couple of CDs or DVDs? What if the CDs contained the equivalent of “books on tape”?
I just don’t see why it matters if someone throws it away or otherwise maims it (unless it’s a very rare book, or it’s out of print). They’ll just print more. Hell, even if it’s out of print, something like The Book Machine can print books on demand. At one time, books were irreplaceable stores of knowledge, and were due some amount of reverence. But now we can mass-produce the suckers, and it really doesn’t bother me if someone throws one away any more than if they were to throw away any other mass-produced item. It would be better to find it a new home, but if you don’t have the time, then just toss it.
I don’t have any, sorry t-keela. I don’t get magazines delivered (though I might again soon… Realms of Fantasy, love reading the stories and much cheaper on the pocketbook than buying at the mall)
Joe Random DVD and CD’s generally don’t get wrecked by the rain. I have a CD my brother fished out of somewhere that I listen to. And no, I don’t throw away my CD’s unless they are irreplacably wrecked. I usually sell them to a pawn shop, at a garage sale or give them to the thrift stores.
As someone who can’t afford to buy full price books, I would cry over it (okay maybe not quite cry) because that means there are less books that I can get at rummage sales, thrift and used book stores for a fraction of the cost. And yes I go to the library, but even our lovely multi-branch library doesn’t carry all the books I want to read. That’s the shame. Because not everyone can afford to buy books and the library can’t keep them all.
It’s also easy enough to drop a bag of books at a thrift store. Even if they do then toss them at least you tried to find them a new home.
I have donated books to libraries, thrift stores, children’s hospitals, regular hospitals, nursing homes and used books stores. I swear I had books I put more effort getting rid of then actually aquiring. I have a yearly purge and donate all I manage to let go of.
I will throw out or find other uses (stabalizing the Christmas tree, padding, wrapping paper) for those I deem SO BAD they must be punished for existing.
I’m in the middle of moving and discovered 2 paperbacks under my bed that one of my cats had peed on and hid. One was a mass market, easily replaceable so no biggie. The other was an SF anthology that I’ve had over a decade and is now out of print. I actually cried at the idea of not being able to re-read it anymore. Then I put it in an empty drawer in my dresser so I can get all the publishing info on it so I may quest for it in the furture. I love my books. They’re my babies. True, some of them mean more then others, but I can’t comprehend just throwing them away to molder in some landfill. At least try to find someone who will appreciate them.
And for those mocking romance novels, I’ll have you know libraries will take them - gladly - to be on the shelves or sold. Apparently they’re top sellers. Sometimes, you just want the literary equivelant of a candy bar. So 
I’m really serious about starting a new collection of Nat/Geo magazines. I think they’ve got some of the best info. of anything you’d ever want to read. I’m not much on fiction anymore. I love science and research materials. People talk about getting rid of their textbokks and encyclopedias and what have ya. But I’m just the opposite. I did sell back a lot of my old textbooks. The ones that they actually offered something for. I kept most of the texts that I really liked though.
When I was at SHSU I fell in love with their library. It is a “depository” library and it also has one floor that is a museum of old books. They have several books that are practically ancient. You have to get special permission just to look at them. It is quite intriguing for me to read first hand the written works of people who have been dead for centuries. The Libris Carolinis (Caroline Books) by Charlemagne is a set I’d love to see. IIRC one of the books (out of a three volume set) is at Harvard. The other two IIRC are at the Vatican.
Ahh hell they’re just a bunch of old books…throw 'em out. Better yet, burn the damned things.
So reckon what it’d cost to mail a box full of National Geographic magazines? Probably more than they’d be worth, huh?
For those of you with limited budgets for books: try looking through dumpsters behind libraries and bookstores. My mom makes a good bit of money selling the books she finds this way on Amazon, and I’ve found some pretty good books myself.
Eve, I think it’s fantastic that your local libraries have the space and ability to retain weeded books for years, even the outdated shit that has no value except for historical record, until they are eventually whisked away.
But as the head of withdrawns/transfers* at my library, please allow me to interject some practicalities:
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Like many many other libraries, we do not have the space to hold weeded books. Hell, we don’t have the space to house the books we intend to keep, nor all the news ones that we purchase each year, let alone dedicated rooms or halls for discards. A bigger facility with more shelves would be nice. Money does not allow.
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Once upon a time we had a number of large ranges in the main area, filled with discards for book sale. Maintaining said shelves required valuable staff time, and while a few extra bucks here and there certainly didn’t harm the library, the earnings it produced did not justify the amount of staff labor required to keep it open. Hell, we can’t even afford to hire enough people to reshelve the books in the regular circulating collection, since most of the budget for page hires was cut. Money does not allow. See also space limitations in #1 above. So, no more book sale. Those ranges now house part of the regular collection.
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Donations. Yes, we donate all we can. We give a lot of outdated govt. resource items to various research development offices on campus. We call other libraries to see if they want what we can no longer house. We’ve been sending books to Afghanistan since the war on terror began through a professor with global aid connections. Sometimes professors request discards from specific subject areas. But the problem is that we cannot physically transport the hundreds of discards ourselves; the takers have to come pick them up. It would be nice if I could just hop in the library van and drive a collection of 40 years of a serial on botany a couple hundred miles away to a library that wants them, but money does not allow. And nobody locally wants or can use 40 years of a serial on botany. So if we can’t keep it here, and nobody else can take it off our hands, where does it all go? That’s right. The dumpster. The recycling dumpster, I should say. It would be nice if volunteers would come forward to transport donations to willing recipients; unfortunately, no one has yet stepped up.
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To the rest of you who believe libraries should keep all books because they’re “cool” if old, or have some sacred inherent value: If the information contained in a book or periodical is completely outdated, it has little or no value to anyone except as a historical record. With our limited space, we must make priorities. Do we keep all the bound volumes of periodicals that are covered by JSTOR? No, because we need to make room for the bound volumes of current information in critical areas of study and besides, it’s on the internet. Do we keep the past three editions of World Book Encyclopedia (which is annual)? HELL NO, we need to be able to put the current edition on the shelves. Do we keep all business and management books from the sixties, because some day some browser might like to see what books about the market looked like from that time? Ummmm…no. Look, libraries do their best with limited staff, space and funds. If you want to see a change, do me a favor: Write your local legislators. Demand that education funding not be cut any further. Organize fundraisers and generate support for your libraries. If enough interest is generated, they just might be able to hire more staff and build larger repositories.
*I don’t actually get to make the decisions about what’s kept and what’s tossed. The bibliographers get to do that. I merely do the physical processing, removing the records from the computer and stamping the items that have been accumulating dust the last 40+ years. ACHOO!
The title to my post above should have read:
Addressing Eve’s comment that no books should EVER be thrown out under any circumstances, and a word on libraries in general:
. . . Except that I didn’t say that . . .
You’re right; my apologies. However, I still refute your claim that all books besides damaged ones and romance novels should never be thrown out.