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“Inflation”

Every month there’s a new tweet that’s like “I cannot BELIEVE libraries would just THROW OUT decades-old copies of popular books instead of investing money, labor, and space they don’t have to slowly donate each moldy copy of Brave New World to a child who’d want it” and every month librarians will write painstaking threads detailing why this practice occurs and why these well-meaning suggestions do not work, and every month nobody reads them and then this happens all over again

vampiregrrl98

This is book burning in my opinion on a mass scale! 😢😭😠😤😡🤬

jabberwockypie

@vampiregrrl98 It’s REALLY not, though, which is the point of this post. They’re not throwing out books anyone wants to read, or books anyone is trying to check out. Some of those books are damaged. And if they’re damaged because people have been checking it out so much, then they’ll probably get another copy that isn’t falling apart. Libraries don’t have room to keep everything. For example: when I worked in the school library in jr. high, we threw out a whole shelf of non-fiction books about other countries because they were 30-40 years out of date. They were better sources, some of them were about countries that didn’t technically exist anymore (because, in the interim, the cold war had ended, among other things), and a lot of them were kind of racist!

shiobookmark

Another difference someone else pointed out is that book burning happens to destroy information. These books are being destroyed because they’re unwanted, the information still exists either in a better form or just in a newer wrapper. Books don’t last forever. I was shocked the first time I learned about weeding, but mum explained it to me. Libraries do often give away a lot of books for free or at low cost. They sell them at the library itself. If people don’t grab them what’s supposed to happen then? Do you know how many books are kept in the stacks? They pile up really quickly.

parkchanwoohoo

I really appreciate all the people who are kindly and patiently explaining the weeding process to those who are shocked by this practice because I need such people to counter my tired ass just telling them “Fuck you and fuck your books too I love pulping them actually, and fuck you, again”

jordisstigander

The school library was weeding some books while I was teaching art camp this summer, so I grabbed an armful the day we were going to make collages.

The shocked gasp that rose from those children when I lifted a book up and Ripped it in two thrilled me a bit more than is probably okay. I then had to explain that these are old, cheap books, no one will want or buy them, they’re falling apart, etc. Reusing them for art is a kinder fate than throwing them straight in the trash.

A few of them ended up being delighted in the transgressive feeling of cutting up a book to use in art. If they remember anything from camp, it’ll probably be that moment

Books are not, in and of themselves, sacred. They are the vessels of knowledge and stories, but vessels age and wear out and must be replaced.