I'm still not a librarian: deaccessing books

Archive: Richard Evans Lee

I posted Destroying homophobic books. Steven noted it and Anna added to it. I ramble on a little more.

When I said that booksellers aren’t librarians there about three things I was thinking of. Some people sit and read. If the books aren’t mishandled I don’t even mind if they ask for a pencil and scrap of paper for notes. And people donate books. That used to make me a tad squeamish: please let me pay you something for them. That is if they are worth anything. Then they are merely trash. We had to give up our dumpster when Clinton’s tax cuts sent the City of Durham scurrying for usage fees and the dumpster became too costly.

When I said they couldn’t just trash books I was thinking of your average public librarian. Given the way politics and religion often poisons people librarians of all biases must feel disgusted by some of their inventory (if that is the term). My guess is that few of them could just take books they despise and toss them. If the librarian were caught there’d likely be all manner of hell raised.

Which is a good thing. You don’t want cultural custodians venturing into censorship. Back in Savannah they kept books they weren’t comfortable with in a glass counter. So I had to ask for a book on hypnosis. (I’m not sure what all was there, probably books they were afraid would be stolen.) And Savannah High School library did have that copy of The Electric Kool-aide Acid Test that I wanted to read. Not that I knew the room it was locked in existed until I asked the librarian where it would be.

Sadly some public libraries have gone on deaccession binges. I don’t know if it was an attempt to curry budget money, idealism gone askew but many libraries have sold for pennies uncommon books so that they have more room for the latest bestsellers. Wonder if that happened at the old Savannah Public Library. If so I’m glad it was after my childhood (more on this later).

I think it may be called the bookstore model. Have space to display the front of books and focus on ‘item velocity’ - to use retail jargon for how quickly a book sells or in this case is checked out.

I was working for an antiquarian bookshop in Chapel Hill when the Wake County public libraries weeded with a vengeance. My boss was delighted. He carted home hundreds of uncommon, valuable reference books the library had tossed. As had bookdealers from miles around.

My one experience with a university library was at Duke University some years ago. The librarian was thrilled to be able to get rid of a small room full of books. I agreed to take everything they had and give her whatever I thought they were worth.

Now that was a nightmare. Luckily the small building in front of our lot was vacant. After a few days of hauling books (with the help of a crew and a man with a truck) I started going through what I’d taken away. The librarian had explained that it was very difficult for her to get permission to get rid of books. Her delight at having me haul them away was understandable. There’re sights more disheartening to a used bookseller than stacks and stacks of worthless books. Banded-to-death old elementary college math textbooks sums up my haul. By the time I was done it seemed a miracle that I’d managed to come up with enough worth keeping to justify writing a $200 check. She didn’t care, I’d toted her trash away.

We had the dumpster back then. I’ll be damned if the pockets the dump truck puts its forks into didn’t rip off when they tried to pickup the dumpster loaded with Duke’s books.

Just a couple of stories, no lesson in all this. I had no idea that librarians would see the earlier note. I’m just a very minor capitalist, not a public servant to institutional custodian.