How to destroy 500,000 books
The trucks and the industrial strength paper shredders with rows of 330 sharp-toothed knives on spherical roller bearings operated by hydraulic drives are set to roll out this week and destroy 500,000 books from the National Library—an end point in a long, controversial policy which will forever be regarded by many critics with despair and disgust.
Objections to the massive cull managed to prevent the shipping of the books to the Internet Archive. Instead, the books will be destroyed on New Zealand soil. The library announced on Wednesday, 'We have decided to securely dispose of the remaining items, starting immediately.' The speed of it came too fast for any further challenges from Book Guardians Aotearoa (BGA), which gained the support of Helen Clark and Chris Finlayson in its various attempts over the years to keep the books intact.
'They're trying to make it a fait accompli – people who are honest and honourable don't have to rush at things like this sneakily, they know they are doing wrong,' said Warwick Jordan, owner of the secondhand bookstores Hard to Find. He offered to buy the original consignment of 600,000 unwanted books for $160,000 (plus GST). He wrote to the Library in 2020 to outline his proposal. 'They never ever showed any interest in even discussing it.'
ReadingRoom spoke with Mark Crookston, the National Library's director of content services, on Friday afternoon. The only object of the interview was to determine the physical intimacies of shredding or destroying 500,000 books, the largest number of culled books in the history of the government's archive library. He said: 'Things are ready to go.' Commercial providers are set to collect 200,000 books from the Wellington premises, and the remaining 300,000 from Whanganui, held in a former police facility.
BGA and its allies have tried to stop this happening for six years. In an email, BGA spokesperson Michael Pringle said, 'We suspect that the books will be burnt or, more likely, end up in landfill, as they cannot be recycled as the covers would have to be ripped off. A most symbolic end for them: rotting in a hole in the ground, like so much intellectual life in New Zealand.'
Mark Crookston from the National Library said, 'My understanding is that there's recycling at the end of the process.'
Industrial shredders include the Twin Shaft Shredder Genox M Series-M300-1200. Its strong blades manufactured from high quality steels are suitable for shredding tough materials.
'Successive governments (both National and Labour-led) have supported this appalling decision all the way to the final destruction of the books,' said Michael Pringle. 'BGA is very sad that it has come to this, and sees it as a severe blow to our national culture and heritage, and to independent scholarship and research. It's not what national and state libraries in the other democratic countries of the world are doing – they are increasing not decreasing their collections – and it exemplifies the lack of interest in and support for arts, heritage, culture and independent research which has been typical of every New Zealand government in the 21st century.'
Mark Crookston was asked about the readiness of the 500,000 books to be destroyed. He said, 'Some will be in boxes, some will still be shelves near the loading docks. Some may have already started going. And the providers will take them to where their machinery is. It's a secure document destruction certified process.'
Warwick Jordan from Hard to Find claimed, 'They are NOT recycling them. They are going to landfill. Recycling requires all plastic covers to be removed and treated separately – I guarantee no-one is doing that. The whole thing's a lie. Got anyone with a camera who can follow the trucks? They will be going to landfill.'
The identity of the commercial firm which will destroy the 500,000 books is confidential. They may have access to a machine such as the Wiema ZM 40 four-shaft shredder. Its cutting configuration comes with two cutting shafts. The shafts can be configured according to the desired particle size, and the width of cutting discs can be variably adapted.
Pringle from BGA said, 'The collections of the National Library were built up over successive generations by such great librarians as Geoffrey Alley. To see their destruction now at the hands of those who understand so little of our culture, heritage and history is a grievous act of cultural vandalism, which future generations of New Zealanders will lament.'
Crookston from the National Library said, 'It's not something we've taken undertaken lightly but that message has been quite hard to sort of get across.'
The library dumped a tranche of 50,000 books at a Lions Club sale in Trentham in 2020. Jordan flew down and bought 50 boxes, stored in two shipping containers at the back of his Auckland store. He told the National Library that year, 'About two thirds of them are useful to us which indicates that about 400,000 of the 600,000 books you want to destroy would likely be useful too.' He estimated the total retail value was 'in the millions', although it would take a long, long time to achieve that. He wrote to the National Library in 2020, 'Just housing 600,000 books would be a big ask for us but it feels like my duty to try and find a way, and if you are serious about them getting to the most homes and being preserved for future generations we are probably the only real option.'
The process of shredding books is called hogging. Books go up a conveyor belt and into a chute, where they come out ground. Then the shredded books are baled and sold to paper mills to be turned into other types of paper products.
'Once destroyed,' said Pringle from BGA, 'this taonga collection can never be put back together. It is lost to New Zealand forever.'
The National Library's Crookston sounded quite wan in his interview on Friday afternoon.
He was asked, 'How are you feeling? Are you OK? You sound kind of tired.'
'It's been a long week,' he said.
'Has it been full-on getting the books ready to destroy?'
'It's more–I'd just rather not say. It's just–I've just had to talk to a lot of people about this process and a lot of people have been really upset about it.'
'Thank God it's Friday, eh?'
'Indeed.'
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