I think there is probably a distinction between an archivist and a librarian. A librarian I know explained to me that the job of a librarian is to curate a co

I think there is probably a distinction between an archivist and a librarian. A librarian I know explained to me that the job of a librarian is to curate a collection of books, not to archive/preserve every book. Librarians frequently throw away old books they feel are no longer worth keeping around (generally due to lack of interest, relevance, etc) and certainly don't seek to acquire as many new books as they can. With the rate of modern publishing, only a tiny fraction of books published will ever end up in public libraries. If you look around or ask, libraries often have a pile of books that are free to take and keep, and will otherwise be thrown away if nobody wants them. I've gotten a fair few books this way, though I've scarcely read any of them. I use one of them as my mouse pad; Microeconomic Theory by Henderson and Quandt, published in 1958. A true bore, but it has a very nice library binding that works great with laser mice.