The ‘barbaric’ pulping of 240,000 books from Manchester Central Library was a ‘covert destruction of culture’, as physical was replaced by digital, according to academics and campaigners.
The claims come following a Freedom of Information (FOI) Request issued by campaign group ‘Friends of Central Library’, where Director of Libraries Neil MacInnes revealed that more than 40% of reference texts had been ‘withdrawn and are no longer available’.
The FOI revealed that most non-fiction texts were sold to a local firm, Rival Books, who then disposed of them.
Joanna Hodge, a Philosophy Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, criticised the ‘covert’ nature of the apparent pulping, and said that in reinventing itself as a high-tech, modern library, Manchester is losing some of what makes them so important to researchers in the first place.
She told MM: “It does seem regrettable that at the same time as Manchester is so busy cultivating its image as a cultural centre with its shiny new library and its nice shiny new home, it can’t seem to find a home for the books that people actually read.
“You can find things online, but if you’re seriously studying you need hard copy. And if you ask a librarian they will always agree.
“The pulping of books is a deeply barbaric practice that destroys the very thing out of which culture develops. It’s a terrible thing to do.”
Professor Hodge was one of a number of academic figures that lent their names to a high-profile campaign by the Friends in 2012, during which time the library was receiving its £170million restoration.
They were told then that plans to pulp the textbooks would be halted and they would be moved into storage.
“They may just as well take [the books] out into the middle of Piccadilly gardens and burn them in a bonfire. At least then you would know that this is some kind of termination of civilised practise,” she said.
“But this covert pulping of books – and it’s not only Manchester that does this – certainly seems weird when they spend so much smartening up a library to then destroy the books that it is supposed to preserve.”
Councillor Rosa Battle, executive member for culture and leisure, said that selecting texts for withdrawal was a meticulous process, and that no rare, valuable, local history books or city archives had been lost.
In a statement, she said: “The £50million transformation of Central Library, which re-opened last year, has been incredibly well received by Manchester people and visitors alike.
“It has opened up the library, making substantially more of the building and its outstanding collections accessible to the public, as well as providing top quality new facilities, such as those in our Archives and Centre, to bring these collections alive for the digital age.
“The transformation gave us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to review the general reference collection which had been amassed over the decades. The only books which were withdrawn as part of this vital housekeeping exercise were those which were duplicated, outdated or otherwise obsolete.
“All rare, valuable, historic and local history items were kept as part of our collection. This review was carried out through a painstaking process, using clear criteria which were published on the council’s website.
“The team ensured that the depth and breadth of the general reference collection was good across all subject areas.”
According to the council, as well as duplicates and paperback books the library otherwise owned a hardback copy of, other items that were pulped included ‘coffee table’ books, out of date textbooks and material now available as an electronic resource.
But Professor Hodge says that for researchers like her, a text without value is a rarity.
She added: “I would be interested to know whose views they had taken on what is a worthless, low grade encyclopaedia and what is a valuable 19th century archival resource.
“It seems to me that it is misguided because it is under the rubric of the thought that everything can be consulted online, and/or that the latest edition of the book or encyclopaedia is the only thing that is needed. This is to deny history, isn’t it?
“Would we pulp all the original editions of Shakespeare’s texts? When do we know whether or not we’ve pulped original editions of things that are as important as Shakespeare? The answer is never, if we don’t know what is being pulped.”
“If they [books] are falling apart, librarians must be allowed to use their judgment, but if they [managers] get rid of 240,000 you kind of wonder what their policy has been. I’m just a bit sceptical. If it was all worthy of being pulped, perhaps a more direct approach might have been advisable.”
When the Friends first opposed plans to dispose of the reference books in 2012 – naming people such as poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and writer Jeanette Winterson as champions of their cause – they were told that the under-threat books would be moved into a warehouse, and warned the library management that destroying them would represent ‘cultural vandalism on an industrial scale’.
Dr Simon Rennie, an English lecturer and member of the Friends of Central Library, worked at the old library while studying for his MA degree, and was involved with segregating the pre-1850 texts from the stacks before the building closed its doors for refurbishment. It was these texts that were preserved.
He said that none of the librarians, or even senior librarians, were told what would happen to the other texts, and blamed a mistake in the architectural planning of the building for the loss, rather than the books no longer being of use.
Dr Rennie told MM: “I know there is quality in those stacks because I’m one of the few people that have been through those books one by one, all 500,000 of them.
“They only had a certain amount of shelving space left. So instead of checking out how many books they had and creating shelving space from that, they had to go by the architect’s plans, so they’ve then weeded back to that figure, which has resulted in 240,000 books being lost from an irreplaceable collection.
“It is highly unlikely that the criteria that Central Library put forward in terms of the process of segregating texts could get rid of 40% of a large stock of books. They suggest that these are outdated, duplicate texts. You don’t get many duplicates in any collection.
“They say they consulted with experts, but that’s not the public, and they can never name these experts. There was no public consultation, and when we raised it two years ago they stopped the process.
“Why did they stop it if they thought it was a worthwhile process? They gave no reason as to why they stopped, and then they quietly carried on with it.”
Two philatelic collections were sent to the British Library, and the council stressed that a breadth of content could still be found in all subject areas.
But Dr Rennie remains unconvinced about the strength of the council’s argument.
He said: “The Central Library will argue that it is not as though these texts don’t exist, because they can be found in the British Library, as all books do.
“But the whole point of Central Library was that it was an alternative to London, and it is the pride of Manchester that counts. This was the biggest freely available reference library outside of London in the country. Now it isn’t.
“The economic and intellectual rivalry between Manchester and London goes back a long way. That’s why we have Piccadilly and Albert Square. Manchester Central Library was set up for that purpose and this has undermined that.”
He also agreed with Professor Hodge that no amount of digital reinvention can replace physical editions of texts.
“At the very point when most non-fiction texts are starting to move over to the digital format, we should be keeping the last generation of books that still exist, rather than getting rid of them.
“I am a researcher and I use digital texts to access information quickly all the time, and it is great. But you speak to any researcher, and it will never replace going into a library. People will always prefer to have a book in their hand.”
Image courtesy of sergiovelayosf via FlickR, with thanks.
