If you come to the College Library in Nuneaton now, you’ll find thousands of books piled up on desks and chairs, plus many meters of empty shelves. Staff may be browsing the shelved books, others working with hundreds of books at the enquiry desk.
The library book stock is being prepared for the new year. This summer we have decided to revise almost all the sections in Nuneaton (and it’s already been done in Hinckley) and withdraw a large number of out-of-date, damaged and underused books, video tapes and multimedia packs.
Often librarians come across a puzzled reaction: throwing books out?!! – Our learners and staff expect from the library recently published textbooks with accurate and up-to-date information. Older publications may be unsuitable for learning purposes any more. This is especially true with the following topics - law, child care, social care, education, travel and tourism.
Another reason for withdrawing stock is that our learners and staff like browsing shelves for discovering learning resources. It is easy to get confused when too many irrelevant publications are in front of you. For the last three years, despite having fewer books on the shelves, the number of books borrowed by library users has been increasing substantially.
Do we throw books out? – Almost never. The vast majority of withdrawn books are sent to Better World Books. It’s a not-for-profit company based Scotland which sorts ex-library books, sells some on Amazon Marketplace, and sends others to libraries in developing countries. Books which cannot be utilised in any other way are recycled. (Do you know that the most of paper for British newspapers is produced from recycled materials?)
Better World Books pays part of its profit back to our library. Last year we earned over £170 in that way. The same amount was donated on our behalf to literacy charities to help people acquire reading and writing skills.
You too can bring books you do not need any more to the library and we’ll send them to Better World Books.
Those books which cannot be sent are recycled in our College. Sometimes we can donate books we do not need to other libraries. That was the case with sign language resources. As the College does not teach sign language any more, relevant books, videos and DVDs were given away to other libraries and local sign language practitioners.
In the next couple of weeks there will be fewer books on the shelves, but those remaining will be newer, more relevant to what is taught in the College, and more easily discoverable.