Latest news with #MarkCrookston
Newsroom
16-06-2025
- Business
- Newsroom
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.'
1News
12-06-2025
- Politics
- 1News
National Library to dispose of 500,000 books from overseas collection
The National Library is set to dispose of half a million books from its foreign books collection to make room for more items about New Zealand. The initial decision - made over six years ago - was met with public backlash. While a fraction of the books were saved, the rest will be pulped from today. 'There are compelling reasons to remove them,' National Library's Mark Crookston told Breakfast. 'It's a decision not taking lightly, they come from a lending collection, which is no longer being lent. 'Only 1% of the items were being lent in the years leading up to the decision in 2018. Over 80% have not been lent for 20 years.' ADVERTISEMENT But author Harry Ricketts, who's been fighting against the cull, says he's 'miffed' at the decision. 'It's partly a generational thing, someone like me comes from a generation in which [believes] - like the character in Ian Forster's Howards End – 'books', said Margaret, 'move by the holy word'. 'The physical object of a book is particularly important. 'The idea that somehow only 'our' books – what are 'our' books? – should be preserved – seems a rather dodgy criteria.' Crookston said it was just 'good collection management' to not retain lending collection items much longer than they are required to be lent. 'This is just basic library practice that we learn in library school collection management 101.' 'They're just taking up space and taking up resources that can be better utilised for collections that are wanted.' ADVERTISEMENT The books are currently being stored in number of locations in Wellington and Whanganui. Crookston estimated the volume of items would take up 'the square metreage of approximately a third of a rugby field.' Internet Archive agreement scrapped In December 2018, the then Minister of Internal Affairs approved the National Library's request to remove the items under the National Library of New Zealand Act. An agreement was then made with the Internet Archive to export the remaining items to their offshore digitisation base, to provide online access as well as retain physical copies. However, Crookston said the library has now withdrawn from this agreement. "Responding to subsequent concerns about copyright issues, the National Library paused this project and now have withdrawn from this agreement." ADVERTISEMENT The remaining disposal options included transfer, sale, donation and destruction. 'While 15,000 collection titles have been transferred to other libraries, the experience with donating approximately 50,000 titles to book fairs in 2020 resulted in a modest pick-up from the public which reinforced the purpose of disposal in the first place.' The National Library said from 2017 to 2020, less than 1% of the items involved were borrowed. "Most of the titles have not been issued for the last 20 to 30 years," it said.
RNZ News
12-06-2025
- General
- RNZ News
The National Library set to destroy 500,000 books
books national 43 minutes ago Yesterday morning, the National Library of New Zealand began the process of destroying half a million books and says they're going to be shredded and fed back into the recycling system. The library claims they've been trying to re-home them since 2018, that there's no demand, and that most haven't been requested in decades. Book dealer and Hard To Find Books owner Warwick Jordan disputes this. There is a demand, he says. In fact, he wants them himself, and says he's already made several offers. Warwick Jordan and National Library director of content services Mark Crookston speak to Jesse.
