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January 7, 2007
Library books in American public libraries
The article that I picked up last week about American libraries and the books they are thinking about throwing away has caused a wave of press comment in America
Here is an article by David Shribman on Yahoo
And here is an editorial in the Washington Times
It's good to see that exposure of non sense brings forth common sense.
Posted by Tim Coates at January 7, 2007 10:34 AM
Comments
I believe there is also a problem with less 'classic' titles being weeded from the shelves. Working in interlibrary loans I have noticed it is more and more difficult to get hold of older fiction as all the public libraries in the country are throwing out the same type of stock. This includes older fiction titles, childrens fiction from before the 1990s and large print stock. Items which 20 or 30 libraries stocked not so long ago are now impossible to borrow and these are often items not available from the British Library's excellent Document Supply Centre. It is simply embarassing to have to approach Kansas Public Library to borrow a book that was published in London!
Posted by: swashford at January 7, 2007 3:38 PM
Jon Swift has an interesting if satirical take on the issue:
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/01/who-needs-books.html
Posted by: Martyn at January 8, 2007 11:21 PM