The Losing of Libraries (Pt. 2)

 And Librarians
  In "The Losing of Libraries" I wrote about the disappearance of some local libraries. It is not just a local phenomenon and other examples are easily found.

The NASA Library
 "Holdings from the Library at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Which Includes Unique Documents From the Early 20th Century to the Soviet Space Race, Will be Warehoused or Thrown Out," Eric Niller, The New York Times, Dec. 31, 2025.

  "The Trump administration is closing NASA’s largest research library on Friday, a facility that houses tens of thousands of books, documents and journals — many of them not digitized or available anywhere else....
    The shutdown of the library at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is part of a larger reorganization under the Trump administration that includes the closure of 13 buildings and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories on the 1,270-acre campus by March 2026….

   The library closure on Friday follows the shutdown of seven other NASA libraries around the country since 2022, and included three libraries this year. As of next week, only three — at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. — will remain open."

Microsoft Libraries

Public Libraries
  The "library function" at many public libraries is now often a minor one and books are being removed to make room for more important things.

Key Details of the Incident:
Location: Croydon, south London, UK.
What Happened: Contractors cleared out a local building and left books piled on the ground outside.
The Context: The site was closed as a traditional library due to Croydon Council cost-cutting measures and repurposed into a community resource center.
The Aftermath: Mayor Jason Perry issued an apology on BBC News, promised to take action against the responsible contractors, and confirmed that local residents stepped in to collect the books from the pavement so they could be returned inside.
(The AI summary of the BBC piece.)

The Losing of Libraries

   In Mulcahy's Miscellany I often write about books and the collecting of them and a few recent posts have focussed on the private libraries amassed by individuals. Some people still value printed books and I stumbled upon several shelves of them last week on an island in Georgian Bay. They had come from far away and then the books had to be transported by boat and carried over rocks to the cottage.



Institutional Libraries
  The books prized by bibliophiles and kept by casual readers, who like Anthony Powell know that Books Do Furnish a Room, are more highly valued in many homes than they are in our public libraries and universities. I suppose the complaints about collections of books by partners or spouses are more easily parried than those coming from administrators at institutions, but the complaints are increasingly hard to counter when all of the content can be captured on a thumb drive.
  I thought of the article containing the photo above when I returned home and then saw the cover of the August issue of The Atlantic which contains only these few words in very large print: "The Age of Reading Is Over." Then, I happened to see the image below which is found on the website of Western Libraries. It relates to a curious collection that was placed in the Weldon Library at the end of the last century. 

  Although the Pride Library is only closing for the summer and it is stated clearly that, "The Space Itself is Not Moving or Closing Permanently", my guess is that it will only be a sanctuary of sorts, and that there will be continuing pressure to use the space for something other than the storage of books and periodicals, even though the material is of some importance to those found in this initialism - LGBTQIA2S+.  My guess may be wrong and you can decide for yourself after reading: "The Pride Library: Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Temporary Closure."

  I used to work in some of the Western Libraries and there are now fewer of them. I have chronicled the loss of some and lamented the removal of books from the ones that remain (see, e.g. "Library Lamentations - Stackless Universities").
   I also wrote about another loss - one of the colleges/universities affiliated with Western University - Brescia University College (see, "Bad News From Brescia"). I did not note, however, that the Brescia Library also was closed. You can learn more about that lost library in the article below from Western News. The expansion was completed in 2006, but priorities do change. 

   The space is now a Pavilion which would probably satisfy the late philanthropist who passed away in 2008. She and her husband both contributed much to London and UWO (see, "Mr. Richard Ivey").

There were almost 50,000 items in the Brescia Library and they were absorbed by the other Western Libraries or placed in storage. (For the details see: "Brescia Library Integration FAQ")

  There are still two affiliated colleges attached to Western (Huron and King's) and they both have libraries which were curated over many years. I worry that their years are numbered.

The Bonus: 
  A few years ago I published a post about "Edward Gorey's Library". When I  checked to see if the Western Libraries had many books relating to Gorey, I found that they did and that several were in the Pride Library and had been donated by "Empress II Madison Hart, Royal Imperial Sovereign Court of London and of Southwestern Ontario"!!
  For more information about the Pride Library, see Pride Library.