![\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3APortland_Central_Library%2C_Oregon_(2012)_-_114_-_Children's_Library.JPG;](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2016\/05\/800px-Portland_Central_Library_Oregon_2012_-_114_-_Childrens_Library.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Or, at least, they shouldn\u2019t be. \u00a0But, apparently, at my local library, that\u2019s changing. \u00a0Books my 7th grader loved over the past several years, it seems, my younger son won\u2019t be able to enjoy, because of the library\u2019s extreme deaccessioning policy. \u00a0And it\u2019s tragic, it\u2019s wasteful, and it\u2019s emphasis on what\u2019s new over what will be enjoyed in the long-term is a great loss.<\/p>\n
My younger son, earlier this year, finished reading the Harry Potter series. \u00a0Happily, we had the set at home, a Christmas present from a couple years ago. \u00a0He then read the Percy Jackson series, which he practically inhaled because he enjoyed it so much. \u00a0We had that series at home, too, from a birthday present. \u00a0Last night he finished it, so I took him to the library, expecting to, as we did with his older brother, check out the first couple books of the Heroes of Olympus series, from the multiple copies in the library.<\/p>\n
Except we couldn\u2019t. \u00a0Sure, there were a dozen copies of book three on the shelf, but none of books one or two \u2014 and, in fact, when we placed a hold, we saw that, for book two, there were only three copies, compared to the dozen copies of the more recently published books. \u00a0There were also inconsistent numbers of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s OK,\u201d I told my son. \u00a0\u201cYour brother also really liked Brandon Mull\u2019s books. \u00a0Let\u2019s see about the Fablehaven series.\u201d \u00a0Except that there were a grand total of three Brandon Mull books available. \u00a0The Fablehaven books had been culled down to one copy of each book in the series, and books 1, 3, and 5 were checked out, which\u2019ll make it very difficult to read, if you have to wait repeatedly for the books to come off hold, in order.\u00a0Mull\u2019s Beyonders series was also down to one copy, with each book in the series checked out. \u00a0His Five Kingdoms series, the newest, had two or three copies, and only one of the four books was available.<\/p>\n
So we ended up with one book checked out, The Mysterious Benedict Society<\/em>, and I came home thoroughly irritated.<\/p>\n I asked my son to list all the series he\u2019s read and loved over the years. \u00a0This is his list:<\/p>\n Harry Potter<\/p>\n Percy Jackson<\/p>\n Heroes of Olympus<\/p>\n Fablehaven<\/p>\n The Beyonders<\/p>\n Five Kingdoms<\/p>\n The Mysterious Benedict Society<\/p>\n Ranger\u2019s Apprentice<\/p>\n The Last Apprentice<\/p>\n Brotherband Chronicles<\/p>\n Inkheart\/Inkspell\/Inkdeath<\/p>\n Ender\u2019s Game<\/p>\n and he\u2019s sure there are more.<\/p>\n I expressed my frustration to the librarian (I\u2019m afraid I wasn\u2019t very nice about it, but, well, I didn\u2019t cause a scene anyway), and she tried to direct us to a new series that just came out, which is completely missing the point. \u00a0Why should each of these be read for a season, and then discarded? \u00a0Why can\u2019t the best of these be kept, and the memory of treasured books be passed down to younger brothers?<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not about space \u2014 there\u2019s plenty of space in the library. \u00a0In fact, they deliberately keep the shelves half-full, saying that it makes browsing easier. \u00a0(Um, no, it doesn\u2019t.) \u00a0But even if space were tight, the library is flush with cash, and could acquire off-site storage at minimum cost, so that second copies of books, or less-read books, could be retrieved quickly.<\/p>\n Of course, this wasn\u2019t my first encounter with the deaccessioning policy. \u00a0Some years ago, I read a compelling Holocaust memoir, written in hiding by a Jewish policeman, after the ghetto was closed and before he ultimately met his death, too. \u00a0Titled Am I a Murderer?<\/a>, he wrestled with the fact that he had sent others to their deaths, in the hope (ultimately in vain) of saving his own wife and child. \u00a0And he describes (this really stayed with me) observing others, who had been on the run or hiding from the Nazis, so worn by these attempts, that they turned themselves in and walked to certain death because of the exhaustion of trying to hide. \u00a0It was really quite an astonishing book \u2014 and it was deaccessioned when I tried to find it to re-read.<\/p>\n Eventually, based on the criteria that any given book must have a certain number of checkouts, most Holocaust memoirs will disappear, because, while they\u2019re valuable as a body of literature, there are a\u00a0few famous ones, and a larger number which individually might not draw as many readers. \u00a0Periodically I think I should regularly check out Clara\u2019s War<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(think Ann Frank except being confined to a dirt crawl space rather than a \u201csecret annex\u201d) just so it doesn\u2019t meet the same fate, even if I return it immediately afterwards.<\/p>\n And my son\u2019s books: \u00a0I\u2019m not an expert, but it seems to me that after Harry Potter, the whole genre of older elementary\/middle school fantasy series fiction, really exploded \u2014 which again means that any one series doesn\u2019t meet the criteria for frequency of checkouts, so they all get lost.<\/p>\n Which is a waste. \u00a0An terrible\u00a0waste, for children\u2019s books to become no more lasting and meaningful than the genuinely disposable romance novels elsewhere in the library, and for children to lose the notion of books as something special. \u00a0What\u2019s that old bookmark quote? \u00a0Ah, yes: \u00a0\u201cA book is a gift you can open again and again\u201d (attributed to Garrison Keillor<\/a>). \u00a0Eh, apparently, it\u2019s now \u201ca book is a gift you can open once or twice, until it\u2019s deaccessioned.\u201d<\/p>\n