Library Book Weeding

Weeding the Worst Library Books

Daniel A. Gross | April 26, 2016

Last summer, in Berkeley, California, librarians pulled roughly forty thousand books off the shelves of the public library and carted them away. The library’s director, Jeff Scott, announced that his staff had “deaccessioned” texts that weren’t regularly checked out. But the protesters who gathered on the library’s front steps to decry what became known as “Librarygate” preferred a different term: “purged.” “Put a tourniquet on the hemorrhage,” one of the protesters’ signs declared. “Don’t pulp our fiction,” another read.

Source: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/09/managing-libraries/berkeley-pl-director-resigns-amid-controversy/

<more at http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/weeding-the-worst-library-books; related articles and links: http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2015-08-14/article/43593?headline=LIBRARYGATE-Protest-of-Berkeley-library-book-disposal--Lydia-Gans (LIBRARYGATE: Protest of Berkeley library book disposal. August 15, 2015) and http://savethebplbooks.org/event/librarygate/ (LIBRARYGATE. Community coalition exposes Fraud, Waste, and Abuse by Berkeley Library Director. August 12, 2015)>