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I feel like what you describe is in fact best practices as practiced by libraries. What makes you think this is not what libraries actually do? Do you have sp

I feel like what you describe is in fact best practices as practiced by libraries. What makes you think this is not what libraries actually do? Do you have specific examples from a specific library of them doing something very different from what you describe? If you aren't going to go by circulation numbers/popularity, then the main obvious other thing to go on is expert opinion. Which I think is what you are encouraging, experts to decide that John Grisham isn't actually "good for people" or something, and Thucydides is. One issue with expert opinion is it's necessarily subjective, any individual person, such as yourself, might disagree with any given decision made by experts, and it's just a matter of opinion whether something was worth keeping why. Perhaps the experts got rid of the thing you think should have been kept, and it has upset you. While no choices are never going to upset anyone, good practice probably combines expert opinion on enduring value, with popularity via circulation stats. And, as you mention, also tries to collaborate with neighboring libraries to divide up the burden of keeping the "last" copy in the region of things deemed worth keeping a last copy of. Here's one library guide to "weeding" (getting rid of books, also called "deaccessioning"), for anyone interested in how libraries and librarians talk about best practices. Although this one is 15 years old. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/pubs/crew/crewmethod08.pdf https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/l...

ghaff 4y ago
I assume the typical small town library has librarians smart enough, perhaps with the assistance of tools, to know that they probably don't actually need 10 copies of the DaVinci Code. (I assume.)
Amezarak 4y ago
Several other links I posted in this thread, and based on personal experience, suggest that generally much less thought goes into discarding books than that. Nevertheless I don’t think your link helps your case. For example, it suggests books containing the following content should be “deselected”: > Material that contains biased, racist, or sexist terminology or views As you can imagine, this allows the disposal of almost all old books regardless of value or status. As I mentioned sometimes book destruction is ideological, but I’d never seen it written down before. Thanks for the cite.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  It "allows" for just about anything -- it requires professional judgement. Isn't that what you were asking for, rather than simply using circulation numbers? I think the scenario imagined there is, say, a textbook about, say, "world cultures" that contains racist descriptions of said cultures. Said textbook is no longer serving the educational purpose it was intended for, and should be replaced by a textbook that serves it better. It may be of "historical" interest demonstrating what textbooks used to be like, and could perhaps be kept for that purpose (especially if no other regional or national libraries have it, and if this is a library that has a mission to have such collections), but it wouldn't be kept for doing the duty it was originally enlisted for. This doesn't seem especially "ideological" to me. It does to you? What part of it? I assume not the idea that an old textbook that describes populations in racist ways should be removed. How are old educational book to be evaluated for relevance in a "non-ideological" way? Meanwhile, that is indeed a place where decisions are being recommended on other than circulation grounds. There are other parts of those guidelines that recommend keeping things despite possible low circulation. Here's an interesting one: > The librarian may also wish to recruit the talents of local experts for particular subject areas (e.g., high school English teachers or college instructors can evaluate the literature section, while area math and science teachers can assess the value of items in those parts of the collection) or languages (e.g., a Spanish-language instructor can help you assess the quality of translations or the relevancy of the Spanish to your community’s readers). Be sure to orient these local experts about the library’s mission before they start. Small and medium-sized public libraries are not research libraries that need to retain material for historical research. I think that's a good quote because it demonstrates balancing 1) circulation popularity (not mentioned there but mentioned in other parts of the guide for sure), 2) analysis of the "value" of the book by disciplinary experts (that's what you wanted I thought? Experts in, say, classics, who would say to keep your Thucydides as necessary in the collection regardless of circulation numbers? Isn't that where we started?) and 3) the mission of the particular library, which may not to be to keep items of historical interest only. I don't really understand what are you are asking for. I thought you started out upset that decisions were being made purely on circulation grounds, that librarians didn't put any thought into it, you instead wanted experts using their judgement as to enduring value to the community. I believe this in fact happens, you still don't want to provide an example otherwise, I provide guidelines that recommend that this judgement happens -- and now I feel like you're upset that the experts might make different decisions than you would, you're mad at this too. I think you agreed that libraries do have to discard materials. Can you explain on what grounds you would like them to decide these things, on what principles? How do you know when a book on, say, world culture, or economics, or history has it's time up? Or a book of literature or fiction? (Keeping in mind that say Dickens or Alexandre Dumas were "popular fiction" at one point, but maybe "literature" now). I am also still mystified by your lack of interest in providing specific examples. You say that public libraries in general are discarding lots of stuff you'd like them to keep, but are unable to unwilling to provide any examples of an actual public library and what lots of stuff it has discarded that anger you? How are you so invested in something that you don't have any actual examples of?

ghaff 4y ago

I assume the typical small town library has librarians smart enough, perhaps with the assistance of tools, to know that they probably don't actually need 10 copies of the DaVinci Code. (I assume.)

Amezarak 4y ago

Several other links I posted in this thread, and based on personal experience, suggest that generally much less thought goes into discarding books than that. Nevertheless I don’t think your link helps your case. For example, it suggests books containing the following content should be “deselected”: > Material that contains biased, racist, or sexist terminology or views As you can imagine, this allows the disposal of almost all old books regardless of value or status. As I mentioned sometimes book destruction is ideological, but I’d never seen it written down before. Thanks for the cite.

jrochkind1 4y ago
It "allows" for just about anything -- it requires professional judgement. Isn't that what you were asking for, rather than simply using circulation numbers? I think the scenario imagined there is, say, a textbook about, say, "world cultures" that contains racist descriptions of said cultures. Said textbook is no longer serving the educational purpose it was intended for, and should be replaced by a textbook that serves it better. It may be of "historical" interest demonstrating what textbooks used to be like, and could perhaps be kept for that purpose (especially if no other regional or national libraries have it, and if this is a library that has a mission to have such collections), but it wouldn't be kept for doing the duty it was originally enlisted for. This doesn't seem especially "ideological" to me. It does to you? What part of it? I assume not the idea that an old textbook that describes populations in racist ways should be removed. How are old educational book to be evaluated for relevance in a "non-ideological" way? Meanwhile, that is indeed a place where decisions are being recommended on other than circulation grounds. There are other parts of those guidelines that recommend keeping things despite possible low circulation. Here's an interesting one: > The librarian may also wish to recruit the talents of local experts for particular subject areas (e.g., high school English teachers or college instructors can evaluate the literature section, while area math and science teachers can assess the value of items in those parts of the collection) or languages (e.g., a Spanish-language instructor can help you assess the quality of translations or the relevancy of the Spanish to your community’s readers). Be sure to orient these local experts about the library’s mission before they start. Small and medium-sized public libraries are not research libraries that need to retain material for historical research. I think that's a good quote because it demonstrates balancing 1) circulation popularity (not mentioned there but mentioned in other parts of the guide for sure), 2) analysis of the "value" of the book by disciplinary experts (that's what you wanted I thought? Experts in, say, classics, who would say to keep your Thucydides as necessary in the collection regardless of circulation numbers? Isn't that where we started?) and 3) the mission of the particular library, which may not to be to keep items of historical interest only. I don't really understand what are you are asking for. I thought you started out upset that decisions were being made purely on circulation grounds, that librarians didn't put any thought into it, you instead wanted experts using their judgement as to enduring value to the community. I believe this in fact happens, you still don't want to provide an example otherwise, I provide guidelines that recommend that this judgement happens -- and now I feel like you're upset that the experts might make different decisions than you would, you're mad at this too. I think you agreed that libraries do have to discard materials. Can you explain on what grounds you would like them to decide these things, on what principles? How do you know when a book on, say, world culture, or economics, or history has it's time up? Or a book of literature or fiction? (Keeping in mind that say Dickens or Alexandre Dumas were "popular fiction" at one point, but maybe "literature" now). I am also still mystified by your lack of interest in providing specific examples. You say that public libraries in general are discarding lots of stuff you'd like them to keep, but are unable to unwilling to provide any examples of an actual public library and what lots of stuff it has discarded that anger you? How are you so invested in something that you don't have any actual examples of?