Parents, Staff Clash Over Book Removal

A team of district librarians and clerks clashed Tuesday with parents and the librarian at Topeka Drive Elementary School over the removal of hundreds of old books from library shelves.

The Northridge school had paid the Los Angeles Unified School district’s library services division $500 to spend a day weeding the library of obsolete books, but parents asked the team to leave after a heated hourlong debate over which books should go.

Seven parents, who came to help with the removal, called a halt after the district team, led by Librarian Janet Sklar, pulled catalog cards from nearly 400 books and selected nearly 600 more for removal.

Parents disagreed with several decisions, saying books on historical figures such as football hero Joe Namath and rocket pioneer Robert Goddard should not be discarded simply because they are unfamiliar to students today.

Parents also objected that their beliefs about the value of individual books were not being considered by the district’s team.

“This is the first time we’ve had a problem like this,” Library Services Supervisor Bonnie O’Brian said.

Old books have been pruned from libraries at about 200 schools since early last year without incident, she said.

Topeka parents and teachers--not district officials--should decide whether the books are worth keeping, said Sara Bacon, mother of a third-grade boy and fifth-grade girl at the school and president of its Parents and Faculty Assn.

“Our argument is with the process,” she said. “Each book should be given a fair trial. Can’t the school have some input to save the books that we deem worthwhile?”

Many school libraries plan to weed obsolete books before they switch to a computerized checkout system. The library services division usually removes at least 1,500 titles on a weeding visit, according to a district memo. The schools will also receive state money to help them replace old titles.

Topeka, for example, is scheduled to receive $20 for each of its 581 students in May, school librarian Sharon Moran said. But eliminating old books before buying replacements would leave students without resources for projects and book reports, she said.

The books picked by the weeding team may be retained by teachers in individual classrooms. Officials said more room is needed for new books in the library, and removing the older books now will ease the transition to a computerized catalog system.