Once again, it’s been an eventful week for libraries. Let’s dive into a few of the headlines that have been making the rounds.

Baker & Taylor Is Shutting Down

If you work in libraries, you probably heard about Baker & Taylor shutting down as soon as the news dropped. If you’re not familiar with Baker & Taylor, they’re one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) wholesale vendors for libraries, meaning that thousands of libraries get their physical (and sometimes digital) materials directly from B&T. And they’ve just announced that they will be ceasing operations by early January. If you’re thinking, “Wow, that seems like it would cause huge problems for the library staff who order materials,” you are 1000% correct. Libraries are scrambling to fill the gaps, but there will inevitably be delays in getting new materials processed and onto the shelves for circulation. If you don’t work in a library, the best thing you can do right now is show your local library staff a lot of patience.

Library Throws Away Books, Public Outcry Ensues

This article about the Newport News’s Main Street Library in Virginia throwing away hundreds of books caught my attention. According to an employee who asked to remain nameless, the library instructed staff to “discreetly” throw away donated materials, rather than giving them to their Friends of the Library group to potentially sell, which (sort of) goes against library policy. I’m going to be real here: libraries have to weed and discard books regularly. And yes, in an ideal world, we would be able to donate the majority of these discarded materials, because it shows that we’re trusted stewards of taxpayer money. But in reality, if a library is doing a big collection purge, they may not be able to manage all of the donated materials sufficiently, or they may find that no one WANTS the donated items. Y’all, we’ve got to stop being so precious about discarded books. I’m not a fan of how this specific library has managed the situation, but we’ve also got to talk about the realities of maintaining library collections. Books are going to get thrown out. It’s not the end of the world.

READING RAINBOW Reboot With Mychal Threets

All right, here’s some good news to close this out: Mychal Threets has been tapped as the next host of Reading Rainbow! There have been two hosts in the history of Reading Rainbow: LeVar Burton and Mychal Threets. That’s it. Talk about iconic shoes to fill! But Mychal Threets has been such a champion of library joy over the last few years that I can’t possibly think of a better person to step in! The New York Times recently published a profile on Threets, and I’m so happy to see this level of coverage for him!