Did you know that books can carry bed bugs? While unlikely, it is possible. In fact, some libraries have specific procedures for what to do when materials are found to be housing bed bugs. Don’t worry, these procedures are made with consultation from pest management and exterminators and other professionals. And don’t worry about using your library for fear of getting bed bugs. It’s highly unlikely to happen and you’re as liable to get bedbugs from the library as you are from almost any other public place.
I bring this up not because I want to increase anyone’s paranoia but because one of my pet peeves is when I hear people complaining about libraries throwing away books. I worked in several libraries over the course of about seven years and one of my positions was working with a collection and acquisition librarian. I can assure you, there are valid reasons for libraries tossing certain books. Besides bed-bugs, books can grow obsolete- how many people really need a 300-page book on VCR repair in the year 2026? When libraries toss books, they aren’t being careless with them nor are they saying they aren’t important. Rather, throwing them away is a much-needed process to ensure libraries are serving their community as best as they can. Although, to be fair, they don’t really just chuck a book into the nearest garbage bin; when they do toss a book, they try to recycle it.
That being said, when libraries do get rid of books, or discard them as it’s often called, there’s a process to it. They’re not throwing away books willy-nilly, there are several factors looked at when libraries decide whether they should keep or remove a book.
Photo: Why do Libraries Weed Their Books?
Library books have a life cycle of sorts to them, and each stage, including the end stage of getting rid of them, is planned out. At the top of the cycle is selection, and that’s choosing what books go into the collection. Say for example, a new Harry Potter book was released. Almost as soon as it was announced that there would be a new Harry Potter book, a public library in a small town would decide to have several copies to meet the anticipated demand. They would then order the books (i.e., acquire them) when they became available for purchase. When the books came in, the books would be sent off to be processed and cataloged. Each one of them needs a barcode and a call number. Additionally, each has to be entered into the online catalog. After that’s done, the books can be put on the shelves for people to check-out and read. As the books go through this process of being checked out, read, returned, and put back on the shelves over and over, they go through wear and tear. Depending on the wear and tear, sometimes the book will have to be mended, like if a couple of pages are ripped out, they can be glued back into the book. Other times, if the wear and tear is more serious then library will get rid of the book, which is a process called weeding. If a book has multiple, suspicious stains and the pages keep falling out even after being glued back in, then the library will throw it away. Sometimes the library will order a new copy of the book to replace the old one if it’s still being checked out regularly. They also might order a similar book, like if a picture book about trucks needed to be tossed, they would just order a more recently published picture book about trucks. Yet other times, the library will simply get rid of the book altogether and not bother to replace it. For example, if a grocery-store romance novel published thirty years ago needed to be mended but it had only been checked out once in the past five years, then the library wouldn’t bother replacing it, especially if they already had other romance novels that were more recently published and were being checked out more frequently.
Wear and tear is a very common reason for throwing away books, however, that’s not the only reason to do so. The American Library Association (ALA) lists these guidelines for getting rid of books, “All materials are considered for weeding based on accuracy, currency, and relevancy. Space limitations, edition, format, physical condition, and number of copies are considered when evaluating physical materials.” (ALA, 2018). Whether or not a book (or books) is determined to be accurate, current, or relevant is largely dependent on the library. Different libraries have different standards for what they deem useful. A public library, serving the general public, is going to need different books than an academic library, which serves students and professors and researchers.
For academic libraries, the ALA says this, “Academic libraries frequently employ a methodology for weeding such as MUSTIE (misleading, ugly, superseded, trivial, irrelevant, or obtained elsewhere) or CREW (continuous review, evaluation, and weeding). The review process may include multiple librarians, faculty outside the library, and/or the library’s dean,” (ALA 2018). When it comes down to getting rid of books in an academic library, outdated information is a big reason for getting rid of books. If someone needs recent information for their research project, it wouldn’t be helpful to have books from ten years ago. So academic libraries will often get rid of these outdated books after consulting others, like faculty in that field. Also, for both public and academic libraries, lack of space is a reason for getting rid of books. As more and more books are published, they require more space on shelves and libraries do not have an infinite number of shelves. One way academic libraries have combatted this issue is to focus more on inter-library loans. Libraries can talk with each other and say something like, “We’ll keep these books and get rid of those books, and you can keep those books and get rid of these books.” If an individual needs a particular book, they can borrow from the library that has it. (Metz and Gray, 2005).
In regard to public libraries, what they often look at is currency and relevancy. If a well-known fiction writer, such as John Grisham, publishes a new book, a public library that serves a town with around 60,000 people might order twenty to thirty copies of the book when it first comes out to meet the demand. However, as time goes on, the books lose their relevancy and won’t be checked out as much. Having twenty-two copies of one book can be excessive, not to mention a waste of precious shelf-space, so the library will look for ways to get rid of all the extras. They’ll likely keep four or five copies and the rest they might try to sell at a library book sale, they might donate some others, they also might recycle some of these books. (Metz and Grey, 2005).
Photo: Why Do Libraries Weed Their Books?
Recycling books is often a last resort. Not every book gets sold at library bookstore and libraries can be limited to where they are able to donate books. For example, public libraries sometimes donate to prison libraries, however, prison libraries cannot accept hard-back books. Other places that libraries donate to have other regulations, like what languages they will accept or what condition. Sometimes the only option is to recycle or even throw away the book. While not every book can be recycled (due to issues like mold or bedbugs), this has been a good alternative to throwing away every book that would need to be discarded. Many libraries will have a recycling bin to toss these outdated or unusable books in and when it gets it filled, off those books go to be recycled, where they might end up being used to make more books.
Photo: Books in the Dumpster by Brewbooks
Just because a library is getting rid of physical books, that doesn’t mean they are getting rid of what’s contained in the book. Several libraries, academic as well as public, have been acquiring eBooks as a way to still have books, but not take up space or deal with dirty ones. While eBooks are still relatively new (only introduced in the late 1990s [Blummer and Kenton 2013]), they have been proving a useful addition to libraries. Both academic and public libraries have found that eBooks are more accessible for their patrons (Gross 2021; Blummer and Kenton, 2013). A library might not keep all twenty-two John Grisham books from earlier, but they can keep a few physical copies and get more as eBooks so there’s still enough for their patrons. This way, they will still have plenty of room on the shelve for when the next John Grisham book is published and they need to order twenty-seven physical copies of those.
At the end of the day, books are not sacred. The information in them might be and there are rare and priceless editions of books. But for the most part, the majority of books, their cardboard spines, their uncoated paper, and their run-of-the-mill ink, the whole physical composition of a book? It’s unremarkable. The physical paper and ink of a book is not an untouchable entity. There are valid reasons for getting rid of them. When library books are thrown away or recycled, it's because they have finished serving their purpose.
Works Cited
Blummer, B. & Kenton, J.M. (2020). A Systematic Review of E-Books in Academic Libraries:
Access, Advantages, and Usage. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 26(1), 79-109.
Collection maintenance and weeding. Tools, Publications & Resources. (2017, December 29). Retrie
ved, from https//www.ala.org/tools/challengesupport/selectionpolicytoolkit/weeding#:~:tex
t=Academic%20libraries%20frequently%20employ%20a,and%2For%20the%20library's%20dean.
Gross, D. A.
(2021, September 2). The surprisingly big business of library e-books. The New Yorker. Retrieved
February 21, 2026 from https://www.newyorker.com/news/a
nnals-of-communications/an-app-called-libby-and-the-surprisingly-big-business-of-library-e-books
Metz, P., & Gray, C. (2005). The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31(3), 273–279.