Weeding books is a very time consuming and, for some people, boring job. It involves matching item ID numbers on printed lists of books that haven't checked out for two or three years against what is actually on the shelves, then marking an item missing if it is not found where it should be or pulling the item off the shelf and placing it on a book cart if it is there. The book cart is then taken to a staff librarian to make the final decision whether to keep or discard.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of older unused books and duplicates taking up space on the shelves. Not only that, every book on the shelf adds to the cost of the automated circulation system whether it is used or not. It's more cost effective to discard unused materials than to increase inventory cost or buy more shelving.
How do I know this? I used to work there as director for twenty-four years. That's probably the real reason my services are not required, not that bogus excuse of compromising the database. Volunteers don't have access to staff computers - they work from pre-printed lists.
I'm retired, guys, not brain dead.
