The predicament of library value

Abstract

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on library ‘value’ in collection management. It is written from the perspective of library practice in a developing country. It focuses on the micro-level of individual library and archival items and comes to the conclusion that value is a multidimensional concept and that one item can have many different values for different individuals, different groups of people, different uses and purposes which are not static but changing over time. This makes de-selection or ‘weeding’ of library and archives material a complex exercise, affecting the benefits from library use in various ways. There may be educational, entertainment, informational, research, evidential (legal), monetary, intrinsic, sentimental and other values inherent to individual library material. Weeding driven by narrowly interpreted criteria of usefulness, curriculum relevance and concerns about storage cost, may not do justice to the educational, social and cultural common good embodied by libraries.