Libraries have differing missions.

Public libraries are to serve the public as a source for popular literature to encourage literacy, to fill basic reference needs, and as a child's gateway to learning. They can't function as warehouses for the vast sum of human knowledge.

One of the things that determine whether books are kept or discarded in public libraries is the circulation statistics. Having things on the shelf is all very nice, but if they haven't left the building since 1979, it's time for them to go. The lack of interest effectively eliminates books from the collection in all but their physical presence: they are invisible. A book that's not being actively used in a public library collection is a waste of space.

Research libraries, university libraries (especially those with education departments), central resource libraries, and special collections maintain copies of books of historical interest, and archives are for the maintenance of other records. That's their job.

The books you talk about -- the ones with the missing spines and the broken bindings, etc., that will be DESTROYED... they're already destroyed. They can't circulate. They need special mini-environments to maintain their integrity as volumes. This is not a function within the public library's mission. We are not equipped for that. The librarians who tip you off already know that. If you have the resources to preserve a volume that it's no longer justifiable for them to keep, they try to find a home for it. The things that don't sell at the FOL book sale cannot be stored for free, which is one of the reasons they're pitched. And there is a reason they didn't sell: lack of demand. A capitalist like you ought to understand that.

If you don't like David Shannon's work -- the book you cited, btw, was based on his very very first book, which his mother had kept along with other kindergarten mementos, and mimics the artwork he produced when he was a preschooler -- there are many other illustrators whose work you would probably appreciate more. Trina Schart Hyman and Ted Rand spring to mind.

I like Norman Rockwell, too, but his is not the only artwork that appeals to people. (He was, incidentally, quite the quiet revolutionary. His depiction of the forced racial integration of American schools is a humanitarian masterpiece that made him a lot of enemies.) I hate the Berenstain Bears, but I collect them because they encourage children to read. R.L. Stine, of Goosebumps fame, has said that he wants "He got boys to read" engraved on his tombstone. I can't stand Goosebumps for my own reading, but he is really, truly, absolutely right.

Your remarks remind me a great deal of conversations I have had with evangelical Christians who want to know why we haven't kept the books in which the Native American tribes are depicted as Godless savages, and why we insist on collecting things that feature evolution. Modern bad. Old good.

The idea that literature of the past is inherently better than that of the present is one that is held by people who have noticed only those things from the past that have survived to the present in great enough numbers or in reprint editions. These works have survived because they had greater appeal. Generally speaking, the great works are the ones that touch many people, or those seminal works that touch a select group of writers and artists and transform literature and art in that way. Anyone who wishes for a return to the Good Old Days needs to do a thorough survey of the remaining dime novels and penny-dreadfuls from our literary past. Not everyone was Louisa May Alcott, or Mark Twain, or even Mark Twain's pal.

There's a reason you see the children at the computers and not reading the books: the books can go home. They do, too. Most of the children using the computers don't have them at home. Most of the adults too.

Regards--
Mary Anne