Cirrus@Austlit

'Over the last decade university libraries have been systematically removing books from their shelves. Various reasons have been given. The University of Western Sydney dumped consignments of them as landfill, claiming they were surplus to requirements or infested with silverfish. Other libraries sold off or gave away allegedly duplicate copies on trestle tables at their entrance. The University of Sydney library removed half a million copies claiming that it had run out of shelf space and that electronic journals and digital books meant hard copies were no longer needed. Anything not borrowed in the previous five years was consigned to an off-campus deposit library.' (Introduction)