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May 17, 2006
Removal of Reference books from libraries
A reader writes:
Last Saturday I went to my local library to consult the Medical Directory. I hoped to find an address for a doctor whom, with his wife, I had met on a recent holiday. I had earlier tried to trace him through Google and had failed. To my surprise, there was no Medical Directory, which I have consulted before but not for some time, in the library and almost no reference books - only copies of the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia, the Chronicle of the 20th century and few other volumes on the almost bare reference shelves. I was told that the removal of the reference books had been ordered. The librarian attempted to get the information for me on the internet but after some time had not succeeded; her time and mine was being wasted. Had the book been there, I could have discovered the information for myself. If reference books are removed from shelves, library staff will spend time helping readers discover facts which they could perfectly well have found for themselves if the books had been there. Not only are our libraries short of new books but those they have got are being removed.
Posted by Tim Coates at May 17, 2006 9:48 PM