Librarians furious as Berkeley tosses thousands of books
Librarians, normally a sedate bunch, were more steamed than a romance novel in Berkeley on Wednesday over efforts to cull the city collection without consulting them first.
About 100 people, joined by more than a dozen librarians and a city councilman, gathered on the front steps of the downtown main library to shout and holler in voices that surely would have gotten them booted from inside the landmark 85-year-old building.
“We’re here to stop the irresponsible weeding going on at the Berkeley library,” said librarian Diane Davenport, standing in front of a cart full of 100 books.
At issue is a decision by new head librarian Jeff Scott to conduct the annual winnowing of the collection without consulting the librarians within each department.
Scott, former head of the Tulare County library in Visalia who was hired by Berkeley last fall, assigned the culling duties to a small group of administrators in a move, he said, to “streamline the process.”
In a ceremony that seemed at times like a military funeral, librarian Roya Arasteh read the names of culled books from sheets of paper, then crumpled the papers and tossed them reverently into the trash.
[...] Worthington said he got angrier when he discovered 32 boxes of old books on a library loading dock, bound for the recycling plant, after he said Scott had told him there were no books awaiting destruction.
The most popular room was one with public computers, where 36 people were sitting at 36 terminals, surfing the Internet.
In the main reading room, with its elegantly decorated vaulted ceiling, four people were reading electronic books on laptops.