Students and faculty at Wichita State are questioning the ethical, historical and professional obligations of Ablah Library after thousands of literary materials were discarded without their consultation or notification.

“It baffles me that the policy in place does not provide room for conversation with faculty and subject librarians who can speak to this,” Assistant English professor Katie Lanning said. “ … It would be a nice professional courtesy to acknowledge to departments, ‘Hey, we’re getting ready to reappraise the accession of modern materials, here’s a list of what’s gonna go. Do you want it?’”

Why throw out books and journals?

At a town hall meeting on Thursday afternoon, University Libraries Dean Brent Mai addressed the “rumors and innuendos” surrounding the discarded materials. 

In his presentation, Mai said the library is following guidelines and standard procedures in disposing of outdated materials, particularly those available digitally. According to Mai, this move aligns with standard library procedure as well as with the needs of students.

“This is the world they’re (students) growing up in. It’s where they have access to half a million ebooks and 64,000 journal titles, and that’s how they’re learning to do their research,” Mai said.

Mai said the deaccessioning — the process of permanently removing items in a collection — of materials is done to free up space and keep inventory relevant to patrons. The library began this process nearly a year and a half ago.

One motivator for discarding print journals and works, Mai said, is to make room for other groups to share the library space, like an area for a faculty research and teaching support group and the soon to be relocated Holmes Museum of Anthropology. 

“The Holmes Museum is, in our world, sort of a different version of the Special Collections …” Mai said. “So we’re being very purposeful and cautious about the folks that are going to be here in our space, here in your space. We’re using the spaces that are also being vacated to create more spaces for students to engage with each other, to work on their projects together.”

Another benefit, Mai said, is the withdrawal of outdated and duplicative print materials. According to the “What’s Going On In The Libraries?” update on the library website, duplicate journals occupied almost seven and a half miles of shelving. Flooding in the lower level of the library last month further incentivized the removal of outdated materials.

“It was considerably more cost effective to discard the remaining identified print journals in the R-Z call number range during the flood remediation process than pay to box them, store them, return them, and reshelve them – only to discard them anyway,” read the “What’s Going On In The Libraries?” post.

Faculty seeking involvement

But some students and faculty are concerned, not just because the library will have fewer physical resources, but because they think there’s been a the lack of communication and transparency regarding the deaccessioning process.

Unlike neighboring Kansas colleges like the University of Kansas, Wichita State’s deaccessioning policy is not available online. Additionally, faculty and staff were not notified when the deaccessioning process began.

“We had no idea this was going on,” associate professor of English Fran Connor said at the town hall. “ … How can we participate if we don’t know that this is going on?”

Lanning was walking by a parking lot a few weeks ago when she noticed a student climbing out of a dumpster, library books in hand. Upset by what she saw, Lanning attended the town hall and asked if faculty or subject librarians had the chance to weigh in on what should be kept or tossed. Mai said they did not.

“It’s our job to make those decisions on your behalf. It’s sort of our realm here,” Mai said.

Connor and Lanning both felt that faculty and those engaging in research have a better idea of what print resources are valuable, whether it be for class curricula or personal study.

“I think we’re in a better position to assess information,” Connor, who studies Shakespeare and early English literature, said. “… I have a better sense of what my students might need to research, particularly because of the projects I assign, things that do, my expertise of Shakespeare in the field, and I’d like to be able to help you shape your collection.”

Mai said the commentary of faculty and staff is welcome, but Connor and student Ripley Stone said it seems as though they’re only allowed to collaborate if they find out what’s going on.

“(There’s a) lack of transparency about this whole thing,” Stone said. “I think it says a lot that we’re having this conversation after materials have already gotten rid of. I think we should have been having this conversation before that happened.”

Merrill’s discarded research

Additionally, not all discarded materials have been digitized, including some that are entirely separate from the deaccession process. Lanning said that on April 18, she and Connor found archival boxes of papers in the dumpster. The documents inside, they discovered, were drafts of a manuscript with hand-annotated revisions belonging to former faculty member Walter Merrill. Merrill’s research notes on American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison were donated to the library in 1981 by Merrill’s family. Many of the documents were never admitted into the library’s circulation, meaning that original documents were discarded without print or digital copies made.

“There is a different level of concern for dumping those than bound periodicals because they’re one of a kind,” Lanning said. “There are ethical obligations to consult the donor’s family to ask if they want it back. There are ethical obligations to ask if other institutions might want it. Dr. Merrill was also chair at Drexel University, maybe Harvard University Press might want it, maybe the English department might want it. And it ended up in the dumpster.”

The removal of never-accessioned work, separate from the deaccessioning of literary works in the library, raised concerns among faculty that deaccessioned work may not be done so properly.

Donation versus disposal

Attendees also asked why the materials were discarded rather than donated. Mai said that when employed at Purdue University, “We couldn’t give them away.” When asked if the materials could be donated to departments or offered otherwise to the WSU community, Mai said he would need “to look at what the ramifications are for that from the university side.”

In an interview with The Sunflower, Lanning said she didn’t understand why the dumpster was the first choice and not the last.

“You can throw it away — boo, bad — you can donate it,” Lanning said. “If there is some kind of Kansas law I’m not aware of that precludes donation or resale, that’s another option, fine, but you can transfer it to other departments in your university or to other institutions.  … I don’t understand the harm in letting WSU community members who want these books have them.”

What comes next?

During the town hall, attendees requested that Mai halt the further removal of library materials until a complete list of discarded materials and items slated for deaccession could be provided.

“I will check into that,” Mai said.

The next day, physics and math journals were found in the Ablah dumpster, according to Delaney Jones, an English graduate student.

Lanning said history and English department members and students have resorted to regularly checking Ablah’s dumpsters to document and potentially rescue discarded materials. Having to do that, Lanning said, is incredibly disheartening.

“I don’t want to have to stake out the dumpster, you know. What a sad image for research on our campus to have professors and students staking out a dumpster to get access to materials they want to survive,” Lanning said. “ … We shouldn’t have to be in a dumpster.”

Mai said he will meet with members of the English department on May 2 and history faculty on May 9. Further concerns, Mai said, can be directed toward him at [email protected].