NEWS: Indignance Burns at 451º Fahrenheit

Nice Bradbury reference.

I can think of a much simpler reason for libraries turning down books: we only have so much shelf space, and we have to use it for stuff that's going to circulate on a semi-regular basis. Now, my library does tend to accept donations even if we don't plan to put them on the shelves, as we can often sell them real cheap to help raise money. But depending on what he was trying to give away (probably stuff he wasn't having any luck selling), they might have judged it to be unsaleable for them as well.

And when I say we only have so much shelf space, I mean it. My library is currently all but bursting at the seams. I regularly have trouble fitting books onto shelves and we have had multiple carts stacked with books we couldn't fit. The librarians are doing their best to weed out underperforming materials and damaged copies and the like to try and deal with it, but they can't keep up with it. Hopefully we'll be able to renovate and expand the building in a couple of years (not that I'm likely to be there to see it. I need a full-time job before that.), but it's going to take convincing the county commissioners to pay for it, and I imagine that will be a tough sell given the current anti-taxes climate.

OOps, I wasn't quite right. PLR (public lending right) fees are paid by the government, not the library. I'm not sure if the scheme (or something like it) occurs there.

http://www.plr.uk.com/textindex.htm
http://www.dcita.gov.au/arts_culture/arts/lending_rights

So it's probably not a reason for most places to avoid over stocking. Sorry *hangs head in shame* I misunderstood/misremembered what I read.

I still think it has an impact on Libraries in Aust though.

"hey guys, there's a shelf of the US tax code over here"

This is a sad story...I bet I would have a found a home for some of those books, even the ones written by Clancy...I loved him when I was a kid, and I know people who like him still...but book burning, even if it is a book written by Danielle Steele or a Harlequin romance novel is still awful

Yes, absolutely.

With all that ink, I wouldn't want to breathe that exhaust.

Would you be willing to pay shipping AND handling fees for "free books".

Do you really want to read a 450 page book on "Soil Mechanics in Engineering"?

These are books for which almost no one has any use for. All donation sites have been exhausted. The school district can't use them - the textbooks are outdated or nonuniform. The third world country can't use them either, its not in their language nor is it children's books with which to read from - those were donated to an ESL program, school, or children's group.

Do you really want to make significantly less then min. wage doing data base entry and shipping books for $.01? Its mostly retirees, stay at home moms (and their children), and (increasingly) immigrants who are doing this.

I know that "book burning" sounds terrible, but what do you guys think they do with old books?

Cuddle them for a while, give them cocoa, and then prop them up on a miles-long shelf somewhere outside Brookings, Oregon. Their covers are buffed and polished by small fairies wearing only frilly green smocks, and once a month the dust is sucked, piece by piece, from their nooks and crannies by a weavel named Cecil, who lives only to make up for all the damage he's done.

Centuries later, they rise up to heaven on the back of Gamera, protector of the universe, whose vaporous contrails are made of koolaid and wispy cotton candy, for he is indeed a friend to all children.

Or is that an old policy, now?

That all changed a few years ago.

Now they slowly rip the pages out one by one. At night, you can hear the screams.

My bad. The screaming would explain why I wake so often with a raging erection and fading visions of Albert Camus being torn in half by Rutger Hauer as C Thomas Howell plays Madlibs with select passages of the Stranger.

I don't know what people, in general, do with them. But my library tears the covers off and recycles the inside.

They oughta smash in a few TVs while they're at it.