Love Canal in the Reference Stacks

Abstract

During the 1940s and early 1950s, the Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corp. buried metal drums in the earth in Niagara Falls, New York. The drums, hundreds of them, contained chemical wastes. The company's actions were perfectly legal and its intentions good; it was placing these potentially harmful substances out of harm's way — secure in metal drums, secure beneath the earth. Hooker's use for the land ended and in 1956 the company sold it. A school and houses were built over the chemical dump. The unfortunate aftermath is well known. The drums corroded; their contents leached out and into the earth and, apparently, into the bodies of those who lived on it. As a result, residents of the Love Canal area experienced unusually high rates of miscarriages, birth defects, and liver disorders. Such were the worst of the effects. Many residents had to abandon their contaminated homes. Suddenly Love Canal became a forlorn place. Good intentions in the 1940s had unwittingly wrought evil consequences in the 1970s.

Weeding the Reference Collection: A Case Study of Collection Management

“…Majka (1996) also offered a well-reasoned case for a systematic development of the reference collection, including suggestions on how to plan a weeding project. Other authors offering support for a review of the reference collection include Lampasone (2008) and Rettig (1982), who each provide editorials on the necessity of weeding reference collections. As can be seen in the dates of these editorials, the process of weeding the reference collection has maintained interest as an important topic, with a new generation taking on the call for reference collection weeding.…”

Systematic Reference Weeding

“…Possible recommendations were (1) to keep it in reference, (2) to transfer it to the circulating collection, either in the building or in a branch library, (3) to discard it. In addition, we sometimes recommended to the reference selection committee that a newer edition or a replacement tool be ordered, or that holdings in one area be expanded.…”

Weeding Gone Wild

“…2 In a 1982 article, Rettig equates reference collections composed of outdated information to a bibliographic Love Canal. 3 Schlachter notes that the prevalence of obsolete reference sources in library collections had not improved by 1988 and at the time called for the American Library Association' s Reference and Adult Services Division to provide leadership to remedy the situation. 4 In addition to the aforementioned tasks, Jerome Library reference staff also hoped to identify and fill any previously unidentified gaps in the collection.…”