Huff Post points us to photos of the 9 Worst Library Books in a slide-show here.
Every library has them: titles in the collection that we stumble upon and think, “What is this doing here?” “Weeding” is where librarians take a close look at our collections and remove items that are past their prime. They are outdated, irrelevant, or just plain funny. AwfulLibraryBooks is a collection of the worst of library holdings. The authors collect the discards of their colleagues around the world and post them (anonymously, of course). The point is to have fun, laugh, and celebrate the time and place when these old, obscure books were popular.
Something to consider
Some librarian bought these books to begin with. They took someones hard earned tax dollars a bought this crap. Good job.
tax dollars spent
It is all about supply and demand. If so many patrons are gonna request for a poorly written book, the library is going to buy that book. It is only a waste if no one ever check it out the item in question. Yes, it is good for any library to weed; unless it has had no circulation since it was bought, it wasn’t a waste.
@11:07
Looking over the titles there, it seems like most of them were probably very good to great titles when they first came out, or at least in high demand (the Burt Reynolds one). They were not a waste of taxpayer funds at that time. Books lose interest. Images become dated. Science advances. This is not a fault of the librarians who originally purchased the material, nor does it make them wastrels.
Burt Reynolds Rocks!
Cannonball Run, Boogie Nights, Smokey and the Bandit, Sherman’s March, Playgirl Magazine — the dude is a national treasure! If you weed that book, you are basically giving the US of A a big F U.
Cannot wait for these to fall apart
Triple Crown and QBoro …… when the front cover is rolled back as if held one handed for a particular purpose I hope they are also raggedy (they usually are) then discard with glee. Not only poorly written but junk food for the mind. Not that I object to junk food but I cannot imagine sharing communal pornography.
We continue to buy these even though community leaders are appalled and they get stolen like a bike with no lock on it.