A true pulp fiction issue

If, like me, you thought it was the job of libraries in Brighton and Hove to hold on to books, think again.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information request that I submitted, it has been revealed that the number of books disposed of by library chiefs in the last year totals 40,489, which is equivalent to one in eight of the total collection. The number of books bought last year by the library was 42,900. So the shelves are fuller than they were which, on the face of it, is a good thing.

But beyond the dry stats we need to know who decides which books are destined for the dumper. Does someone run along the stacks cheerfully binning every eighth book encountered, whatever it may be?

It could be that the books are discarded if they fall from popularity in some literary X Factor competition. Or perhaps the old, worn-out and tired are judged to be past their shelf life. The point is that, at the moment, the criteria are anyone’s guess and that is not good enough.

It would be the work of a moment to add a spreadsheet of acquisitions and disposals to the library website allowing all who take an interest in the cultural life of the city to satisfy themselves that, say, the poetry of Wallace Stevens has not been quietly consigned to oblivion so that the shelves may groan with the novels of Katie Price.

The promise of the digital age is that all information will be freely available to everyone – but the same assurance guided the Victorian founders of our libraries.

Who gets to decide which of the libraries’ old stock is no longer relevant to its citizens? Street guides to the old towns of Brighton and Hove, the supposedly ephemeral details of Sussex history, records of the area’s sporting triumphs and disasters are all too easily discarded in the rush to seem contemporary.

It should not take an inquisitive FOI request to winkle out this information from the city authorities. They must pledge to make the details of their library disposals and acquisitions freely available.

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