National Library halfway through culling 600,000 books
WELLINGTON: The National Library is at the midway point of its project to cull 600,000 of its international books.
The titles, which cover a range of topics, will be offered to local libraries, prison libraries and community groups.
Director of content services Rachel Esson said the books were barely used and took up valuable space and resource that could be better used to support New Zealand texts.
The cull began last October, and was expected to end mid2021, she said.
‘‘It’s part of good library practice to look at what’s used and what’s not used.’’
Ms Esson said the culling process involved making a longlist of titles that were older than 20 years, published overseas, and were not being used.
‘‘We’ve been very transparent. We’ve put the lists up and asked people to work with us to identify what we should retain.’’
There had been ongoing conversations with researchers and historians, she said.
‘‘We’ve been really open, and we invite again any researchers to come and help us.’’
More than 33,000 titles have been retained through the process so far.
‘‘Libraries continue to grow and we are collecting New Zealand, Pacific and Maori material. That’s our core role, and we add to that collection between 80,000 and 100,000 items a year.’’
Ms Esson said it came down to space and resourcing, adding that it cost $1 million to house the collection.
‘‘It’s about the best use of our resources. When less than 1% of it is being used, it’s not a good use of New Zealand taxpayers’ money.’’
Although physical copies of some texts might not be held, it did not mean they would not be accessible, Ms Esson said.
‘‘We do still keep and collect overseas material, but in a much more narrow way to support the collection we have.’’
The way society sought and accessed knowledge had changed so much with the advent of online tools, she said.
‘‘The biggest gaps in terms of access to online material is New Zealand Maori and Pacific material. As the National Library, we want to focus on that.’’