Dirty Books

If your washing machine was on the fritz, and you were looking for a great d-i-y repair manual, used to be you could find this one...



...right on the shelf at our little branch library.  I know, because I have checked it out myself a few times over the years.  It's a wonderful book.


So when a coworker was telling me about her washing machine problem, and was trying to get information about parts and repair, I ran to the shelf and proudly handed it to her.  She was really appreciative.  She found the problem and the repair instructions in no time.


I warned her, though, not to let the circ manager see it when she returned it, because the minor stain on the edges of the book would be immediate cause for discard.  "I use it a lot," I told her.


A week later it was still on her desk.  An hour after that, it was a discard, tossed in a box in the backroom on its way to the recycle bins.


Sigh.


I still don't really know what to say about this insanity that has taken hold of our library.  Whipped into a frenzy by the director, our manager, whose self-reported motto is, "When in doubt, throw it out," has been pressuring us non-stop to weed the collection, discarding anything that hasn't circulated in one year.


For my part, I am proceeding at a steady pace, and have noted that the more time that has gone by since the "dusty bookshelf" list had been generated, the more books on the list are checked out when I look for them.


I am only responsible for adult non-fiction at this point.  The branch manager had been hauling his way through adult fiction, but apparently felt he wasn't going fast enough.  He appointed the circ manager, whose only experience with the collection was shelving them when she was a page.  She does love to throw away her books though.  And where she's not particularly concerned with our staff room resembling a gas station men's room, she has no patience with a book with a stain or a torn plastic cover -- out it goes.


But the circ manager decided she could get this process done much faster by passing it on to a page, who pulls the books off the shelf, tears the barcoded pockets out of them, and tosses them -- excuse me, recycles them.  So that the circ manager can delete the books from the catalog, sight unseen.


Which of course means that absolutely no judgment is necessary, or used, for this job.


Further, and to get back to my no longer extant repair manual, as circ manager she has also appointed herself, with branch manager's blessing, as the queen of getting rid of anything nasty that gets checked-in.  And she does have a low tolerance for nasty.  So books that are being checked out, that are currently in demand, are being tossed with great abandon.


And my coworkers are all gleefully complicit.  At any given time, there are dozens of books back there, pockets torn, waiting for their walk to the recycle bins.


And I just don't get it.  I know it's trite to get all Hitler about things, but there is something mindlessly Third Reichian about this book cleansing that we have undertaken.


Our mad director reports to staff that the weeding project is going just fine; there were some staff who were initially disgruntled about it, but as they have come to realize what it is all about, they have changed their minds.


Thank you, Mr. Orwell.