Welcome! You'll find a lot of love here

Goodness that's a grim tale! I'm happy to hear you've gained a new appreciation for human life after moving to VT :)

Grin! My brother likes to joke "The last time I left the state was when I went to Burlington."

I know what's wrong with it: ain't got no gas in it!

The Johnson library is awesome and it'd be such a shame to see it dispersed to the wind! If the mission is to recoup cash and cut costs, the idea that the books are to be donated rather than sold makes no sense to me!

Thanks for sharing your take. It may be unpopular, but I think your concerns are legit. Keep in mind that many students have a much different relationship with paper volumes.

I got a laugh out of your strategy of using the Chinese literature section to avoid distraction! And, I can relate to your feeling of flipping through pages seeing the annotations and dog-ears of generations of students prior. Many of my peers love paper volumes at school for exactly the reasons you mention

"Administrative costs" come to mind for me

I read this and thought "Burn them!" haha.

Jokes aside, your question is central. Archiving texts for later reference is what a library is for after all. If we don't intend to destroy the books, don't you suppose they're better kept in a catalogued library than dispersed to the winds? What a shame it'd be to destroy books because they take up space.