Grassroots Report: Another Use for Pulp Fiction

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In the early years of the profession, librarians were concerned with the permanence of their collections. Books should last, and their users should work with materials in ways that would help preserve the items on the shelves. Librarians railed against cheap books sold in bookstores. In a paper read at the 1914 ALA Annual Conference titled "Our Present Problem," Mary Ely lamented that children opted to purchase "a bargain in books, so much paper, so much print, for so little money" rather than enjoying "the best books of all ages of time" preserved at the public library (ALA Bulletin, 1914, p. 219-23).

Yet in the 21st century, most libraries discard materials for reasons such as condition and suitability to the collection. How they do so is seldom …