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Work is depressing. I've been asked to come up with a plan for reducing the library square footage by half, together with an impact statement about what we lose if we follow through. This place is my baby, and I look around and try to identify 1/2 of the collection (at least in linear shelf space terms) to throw away. Would you throw away half your family? Would your choices change if you knew you were going to be second-guessed by Uber-Boss, but Uber hasn't responded to your memo requesting input?

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Maybe you should just offer to cut every book in half. The idea would probably be lost on management though.

Nah, what you want to do is rip out every other page. That way you can optimize for shelf-space. If you cut them in half, you need the same linear shelf-feet of space.

Ugh! What a horrible choice to have to make.

I suppose the best place to start would be to see if you can identify areas of redundancy -- so if you've got material in one book that's covered adequately in another (or in parts of several others) then you could get rid of that. Then there's anything that can easily be found on the 'net -- especially government statistics and stuff like that which gets updated regularly.

I'll keep my cow-orkers and the VP of Doom thanks, because most of the time none of them bother me. (But when they do... Oy!)

The biggest target is the NASA document collection, many of which are available in pdf on NASA's own servers. That's saving my bacon because I can point to it for immediate space savings. (There's a moderate nuisance in that I have to confirm we have or can obtain the pdf before tossing the paper copy, but still.)

The next target is periodicals on general business and international trade, which were particularly of interest to Former Uber, who has retired.

Can you acquire electronic editions of anything that you haven't already?
Play with shelving and aisle widths?

Dear Sir - if you can predict for me what we'll never need to know, I'll get rid of that part Right Away.

Only thing I can possibly suggest is to do what you do with family members you cannot care for yourself - find someone else who will care for them as if they were family themselves....

Scadian Tag Sale? Donate half of the collection to the EK Travel Fund?

Could you Imagine Liam trying to sell off books by the ton-load?

Bleah.

Do you keep records of people checking out books? If you could show that there's a long tail, you could use that to make the case for diversity.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the shelving system my dr's office has: the bookcases are hung on rails almost flush together, and they easily slide them out of the way when they want to get to the files in the hidden cases. Ta da! Reducing square footage without reducing the collection.

The ideas about digital copies of things are great, too, and I like that you have some immediate low-hanging fruit to target.

"Would you throw away half your family?"

Sure.

More than half, actually.

Okay, "would you throw away half your pets?"

Of course not. What would I do with half a cat? ;)

What was that line from Pudd'nhead Wilson?
"I wish I owned half that dog." Why? "I'd kill my half."

Terrorize half a mouse.

Me too. :-(

Do you actually throw out half the stuff if they decide to downsize the place? Is it the sort of thing the BPL might take?

I may be able to give or sell some of the continuous runs of magazines. Also some government documents (e.g. the NASA stuff). Most of the books that I would be tossing are stuff that most benefit book sales would decline - Former Uber's college textbooks, for instance.

If you are looking for a home for the NASA stuff (which I assume Space Enthusiasts would at least find interesting), I would recommend
http://chapters.nss.org/a/lists/USA/ChapList_MA.shtml

Put off getting rid of books (other then the Uber's old textbooks, he should get those in a box on his desk), try to get rid of aisle space.

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