Librarian: “We’re Not an Archive”
I went to the Lamond-Riggs Neighborhood Library over the weekend. According to the online catalogue, it was the only branch of the D.C. Public Library with a copy, actually three, of a book I'd been trying to get my hands on (the only historical account of amphetamine use in the U.S., if you must know).
I got to the library, hunted in the stacks and didn't find my book. So I marched over to the librarian. She looked it up on her version of the catalog and scoffed. "Oh, this book is gone," she said. "It's old."
The book hadn't been reported missing or discarded, mind you. It was just really old—1975—and the library couldn't be expected to hold onto old books. "We're not an archive," she said.
I can understand the necessity of thinning the stock every once in a while. A lot of crap gets published. And a lot of that crap gets quickly outdated. But this was a useful, semi-academic text. And no one has written anything like it since, so throwing it away actually blots out a speedy little chunk of history. And why, oh why, is it still in the catalog?!
11:33 am
That's appalling. I sent a copy of your post to DCPL management.
12:18 pm
Well, I can see why they chucked it. I just checked OCLC (a nation and world wide catalog of library holdings, more or less) and almost no public libraries hold copies of this book anymore, it's almost all academic libraries. You have to take into account the difference between their respective missions and patron needs. Public libraries need room for 8 copies of an Oprah book and Teen Vogue- it's what people want and you'd be doing the community a disservice by not providing it. I'd be interested in knowing when was the last time a person checked out Speed Culture, c. 1975, Through that lens, their decision makes perfect sense and seems to be in line with other public libraries. That having been said, it should have been removed from the catalog.
The good news is, many academic and government libraries nearby seem to have this book, so you can arrange for interlibrary loan through the DC Public Library. I tried to post a link here... If they seem loathe to do it, just say you are a librarian. That's what I do! Of course, I am one. But you can just as easily pretend. Act easily offended about everything, and if they ask you where you went to library school say University of South Carolina (almost no one around here went there so it's a safe bet). Or say you are a library student at Catholic or MD and you are doing a study on bad customer service, or on how negative stereotypes about librarians are all actually true.
Sorry you wasted a trip, good luck finding a copy of the book.
12:41 pm
I finally gave up chasing after copies of books that the online catalogue says exist. I put them on hold, sometimes even sending them to a branch that supposedly has the book on its own shelves. Usually (though not always) that will yield me an actual book.
3:51 pm
This sort of thing (almost) never happens in cities with real libraries. Like Nashville.
3:59 pm
This makes sense to me, too. It's a shame they don't have more space for it, but a public library is there to serve a different audience than an academic library. What would be more obnoxious is if they had that book on their shelves and not something more recent and relevant to the majority of library patrons. Did you check any academic libraries? The area has a few.
5:34 pm
Ok .. fine. Throw the book away. But don't keep it in the catalogue.
5:58 pm
I think libraries usually burn the books they remove from circulation.
7:43 pm
Librarians (hopefully) do regularly weed the collection. And in that weeding process the book 'should' be removed from the catalog, and that's where the library system was in error, not in getting rid of the book. If records show that no one checked out the book since the Barry years, and it only got checked out once during all of Barry's second reign, chuck it. Library shelf space is valuable, let's not waste it on books no one is reading.
9:26 am
I'm a librarian, too, and have to weigh in on Angela's side here. Maybe the book should not have been retained in a neighborhood branch of the public library, but it makes good sense to keep rare, older books on the shelf at the flagship MLK library downtown. Access to academic libraries is frequently restricted, and even if you can get in, you can't check books out. Any city that aspires to being in the top tier should have a great flagship public library with good depth and a fine collection of scholarly and rare books. Think of the New York Public Library. Sure, Oprah books and bestsellers have a place in neighborhood branch libraries, but shelf space isn't THAT precious here in DC. If you go to the gift shop in the lobby of the MLK library, over the years they have sold off a vast number of old, rare, and schlarly boks from their collection at ridiculously low prices. It's not like they're putting these potentially valuable books on eBay and getting market value for them. So, what's the point of denuding the core collection at the flagship library, taking the tme to remove the book, then NOT removing it from the catalog, and selling it for a pittance of its value? The barbarians are at the gates...
9:51 am
The point is not that the book was thrown away, but that it was in the catalog when it could not be found on the shelf. This is VERY COMMON. Books are not on the shelf because they were discarded but the record was not deleted from the catalog; because they were stolen, because they are somewhere else in the library but cannot be located. Even new books may be "missing". No one knows they cannot be found until someone looks for them. This patron looked, and couldn't find it. A common situation and not necessarily related to the book's age.
2:08 pm
The book isn't rare. It's available at 921 libaries according to OCLC. If DC Public isn't one of them, that's what interlibrary loan is for.
Yes it should have been removed from the catalog. I'd be lying if I said that never happens in the library I work in though. People expect superhuman and slavish devotion to books from librarians... well, we're actually human, not to mention underfunded. I say save the indignation for the mayor and DC Council. Yes DC libraries are a mess. As are the schools, hospitals, roads, every kind of city service pretty much.
5:18 pm
It may not be rare, but I'm sure hundreds if not thousands of rare books have indeed been thrown out by the DCPL. The book is apparently a classic and the only one of its kind on amphetamines - sounds to me like if it was already cataloged and processed, they should at least retain a copy at MLK. Drug issues are germane here, it's not like the books was on 10th century Norse boat-building techniques (though that would be a fine addition IMHO!).
7:08 pm
I'm really sorry that this happened to you.. and that it happens to people that try to use the DC Public Library every day. There are some basic principles missing here in the public library of our Nation's Capital. One is customer service, another is inventory control and auditing, and yet another is collection development. The most important however is ownership. Our public servants don't have the pride off ownership and they don't hold their coworkers (and managers) to a high standard of pride and responsibility.
Please, complain to Ginnie Cooper and ask for an inventory of the collections. My library does one fifth of the collection every year so the entire library is inventoried and lost books are removed every five years.
It is a core principle of our profession and yet we let the DC Public Library ignore their responsibility.