And the standards for keeping stuff is different across different disciplines…Computer books from the 90s are more outdated than mathematics books from the 50s. Certainly within a discipline the circulation history of a title can be a very useful piece of information when weeding. We’re pretty rigorous about getting rid of older editions when we own the newer edition. Space is finite or decreasing, and it is really quite inefficient to have shelves that are totally full so that you have to shift just to fit a new book in.
And of course the “digitize everything” crowd usually don’t realize two things:
1.) Just how labor intensive digitization can be when you’re talking about a LARGE collection.
2.) The library simply does not have the right to digitize entire volumes that are still under copyright, and the vast majority of the collection is covered by “perpetual on the installment plan” copyright.
