I was reading an article about the efforts by people not to ban books. While I think the sentiment is good-natured, as a helper at my local library, this is actually very problematic. People donate to us all the time, as is how libraries work. Sometimes the books are unpopular, unproductive, harmful, or just low tier.
I would never apply this logic to human beings, all humans have value if the system knows how to channel them correctly, but books are inanimate objects where their expected purpose is to be read (if you were to say a book is useful on the basis it could be used for something like ripping the pages out for wiping a floor for example, that would make its usefulness as a book cease). Often we are over capacity from the donations, so once a year we have a book sale at the church (libraries and churches getting along? Crazy, right?), but even then, a lot just isn’t sold, and we’re forced to either give them to another holding place or, in the worst case scenario, cremate or trash them. I am all for free speech, but freedom to produce speech is different from freedom to preserve speech, and I’m sure even the ancient Romans produced a lot of scribbly nonsense.
Suppose you were in my shoes and the library could preserve anything forever but not everything forever. What criteria would you use in order to decide what media (books, movies, games, etc.) gets to stay and what has to go?
Randomly choose 0.001% of the books.
If you think that’s a bad plan, it’s been the norm for the history of books.
Outside of the thought experiment, banning books is different than choosing to not preserve them or keep them in a collection.
Removing a book that would otherwise fit the criteria of preservation just because it covers a “politicized” topic is different than a book becoming low value, getting superseded by newer editions, or no longer being worth preserving by that particular institution.
Books that help you to think critically are important. Especially when it comes to religion and government. I think “1984” is a good example of this. I’d add “Fahrenheit 451” and “Handmaid’s Tale” to that cache as well.
Fan fiction could pretty much all be tossed without review and no one would know.
I’d say I’d prioritize the ones that have the most impact and usefulness on society. That means:
- all those self-help motivational books gotta go
- the books written by politicians for the sake of campaigns have no place here
- most school & college textbooks come and go all the time (fick you, Pearson) so I wouldn’t include them, but there are all time classics that are worth saving
- all the religious scriptures (e.g. holy bible, quran, tripettaka) gotta stay, no matter how bullshit you and I might think
- classical philosophy stays, probably some modern ones as well (but I don’t know where to draw the line)
- books about facts (i.e. science & history) documents stays, but not all of them; this is a hard one, some rigorous verification
- technical guidebooks (e.g. construction, gardening, electronic, software, machinery, chemistry, metalurgy) gotta stay, but needs rigorous verification, also technology changes all the time, so most of the outdated ones might need to go (saving some for historical purpose)
- fiction is the hardest, but generally the all time classic (1984, anyone?) as well as the really popular ones (sadly includes Twilight) stays
Whew… This is way more work than I initially anticipated.