SFPL Denies Book Dumping Charges

Staff -- Library Journal, 3/1/1999

The San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) came under fire from the San Francisco Chronicle (February 9), which accused it of once again dumping books. SFPL, however, vehemently denied the allegations. "Nothing can be further from the truth," the library's Marcia Schneider told LJDigital. "The library has not discarded any books. We've withdrawn materials from our collections but they're actually waiting to go on shelves until we can determine if they're useful somewhere else in our collection other than the location from which they've been withdrawn," she added. The number of withdrawn titles has reached upwards of 150,000 due to the fact that, until recently, the library did not have a records retention policy. "Prior to September it wasn't possible for us to do anything with any of these materials so they've been building up for a long time -- since 1995." Schneider added that the library does donate books to the area's public school, which are under funded, as well as to the local Friends group for sale at annual book sales. The 27-building library system has a collection of roughly 2.4 million volumes.