Dealer sickened by plan to destroy half a million books
The National Library claims they've been trying to re-home them since 2018, that there's no demand, and that most haven't been requested in decades. They say the process of shredding and recycling them, via a commercial service, has started.
Book dealer and Hard To Find Books owner Warwick Jordan says he couldn't sleep last night and felt physically sick. His various offers over the years to take all the books himself haven't been accepted.
'To give you some context, this issue actually goes back to the 1990s. In the late 1990s, the National Library wanted to get rid of about this number of books. Initially, what they did was they started putting them up in small groups in tender. They put two tenders out. I won both of them, a total of about 30,000 books.'
The process of dealing with the remainder was stalled when the issue became political, he says, until 2018 when only 5000 out of 45,000 were sold via a Lions Club book sale.
Jordan labelled the book sale idea as 'dumb' because the books - although valuable to him - wouldn't be of interest to the average person. The library ended up giving him the leftover from the sale.
'I know what kind of books these guys are destroying. I know that two thirds of them I can use. There's about one third that really is just junk. I mean, it's just no one wants it. It's just out of date.'
The books are international, mostly non-fiction and cover a range of topics like were bibliography, religion, philosophy and computer science.
Jordan says one example of a book that was going to junk was a two-volume set bibliography of UFO books from the 1950s. He believes it could retail for $300-$500.
'I'm not saying they're all worth that kind of money. But there's a lot of interesting and unusual things that wouldn't sell to the average Joe public. But there are people out there who are interested, specialised interest.'
Jordan says he continued to make offers for the remainder, including packing, delivery, and paying money for them.
Although now he longer can afford to make the same financial offer as he did back then, he's willing to find a way to make it work.
'I mean, if I want to make money, I'd go and sell something that actually sells. I want to save the books. It's a disgrace. There could be books in there that is the only copy in the world. Who knows?'
National Library director of content services Mark Crookston told Afternoons they had undertaken a range of considerations before reaching this decision.
'We've found homes for about 100,000 items and haven't found home for about 500,000 items. The sale option is one of those options that we considered and we discounted in this instance.'
Rules of disposal of public assets suggest they could not make a deal like this unless it was run through auction or 'time consuming and expensive' tendering process, he says.
Another reason was the costs required to stamp every book as 'withdrawn' and remove the sleeves, Crookston says.
'We'd have to either employ our existing people away from doing things that they're currently doing or employ additional people to do this … That's quite a considerable, many hundreds of thousands of dollars undertaken.'
Jordan was baffled, saying there's no logic to it because he believes the service doing the disposal would charge a lot to be remove the sleeves and all the materials on books that can't be recycled.
'I don't understand because we could do that for them.'
Crookston rebutted that saying 'collection management 101' principles mean they couldn't allow that.
'We think what's in the best interest of New Zealanders via the National Library is for these books to be destroyed. That's the most cost efficient and cost-effective way to deal with this issue.
'Library leaders around New Zealand and the world know that when there's large disposal projects or processes undertaken with books is that there's strong views held about it because a lot of people just don't like books being destroyed. But in collection management, that's just what a lot of libraries have to go through.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Techday NZ
7 days ago
- Techday NZ
Epicor names Kerrie Jordan Chief Marketing Officer to drive growth
Epicor has named Kerrie Jordan as its new Chief Marketing Officer. Jordan steps into the CMO role after serving as Group Vice President of Product Management and ISV Partner Programmes at Epicor since 2023. In her previous position, she played a key role in developing Epicor's Cognitive ERP roadmap, which is intended to shift ERP systems from traditional record-keeping to systems of action and insight powered by AI. As Chief Marketing Officer, Jordan will be responsible for leading Epicor's global marketing strategy. This involves overseeing brand growth and customer engagement across operations in manufacturing, distribution, and related sectors. Leadership perspective Vaibhav Vohra, Epicor President and Chief Product & Technology Officer, commented on Jordan's appointment: "Kerrie's ability to connect product strategy with market execution makes her an ideal fit for this role. Her leadership has already helped shape our Cognitive ERP vision, and as the only cloud ERP community focused solely on the needs of supply chain businesses, we're excited to see her bring that same energy and insight to our global marketing efforts." With her background in both product innovation and marketing, Jordan is expected to integrate industry-focused product strategy, analytics, and go-to-market approaches. Epicor states that this should help speed up the introduction and adoption of its products for customers, as well as support growth for the business on an international scale. Prior experience Jordan has held various product marketing roles at Oracle before joining Epicor, where she contributed to the development and deployment of marketing strategies. Her experience also includes driving marketing initiatives for enterprise technology clients during her time in consulting roles with global marketing agencies. Her industry reputation includes recognition as a thought leader in cloud ERP, digital transformation, and supply chain innovation. She has hosted the Epicor podcast "Manufacturing the Future", which has featured discussions with manufacturing and supply chain leaders and experts. Jordan frequently contributes to the Forbes Tech Council and holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Santa Clara University, California. Task ahead In her new role, Jordan's remit will span all aspects of Epicor's marketing and brand development strategies across its markets. On her new position, Jordan said: "I'm honored to expand my role at Epicor to serve as CMO. Epicor is at the forefront of helping essential businesses thrive through AI-driven, connected, intelligent technologies. I look forward to amplifying our impact, deepening relationships with our customers and partners, and driving growth across our global markets." The company emphasises that Jordan's focus will be on amplifying Epicor's presence in the market and engaging more closely with the supply chain sector, building on her previous product management experience to inform her marketing activities. Her appointment is part of Epicor's continued strategy to strengthen its leadership team and accelerate its business objectives within the make, move, and sell economy. Follow us on: Share on:
RNZ News
06-08-2025
- RNZ News
Long running Auckland book shop on brink of closure
business books 23 minutes ago One of Auckland's best loved and long-running bookshops is on the brink of closure now its landlord, the Catholic Church, wants to sell up the historic central city property. Hard to Find books moved to the old Newton convent eight years ago, something the owner hailed a 'miracle' after they were forced out of their Onehunga store because of rampant rent rises. But the shop and its more than 200,000 books are one again in search of a new home and owner Warrick Jordan has no choice but to hope for yet another miracle. Evie Richardson reports.
Otago Daily Times
23-06-2025
- Otago Daily Times
No book is entirely useless — let's support all of them
Warwick Jordan in his Hard To Find Books bookshop. Photo: Linda Robertson When Rudyard Kipling wrote "a man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition" he probably had me in mind — apart from the ammunition, of course. Thus, I almost choked on my pinot noir when I heard the National Library plans to destroy half a million books. Mark Crookston, encumbered with the title "National Library director of content services", informed us "most books haven't been requested in decades", which tells us more about the acquisitions policy of the National Library than about the quality of the books themselves. With a number like 500,000 in the firing line I feared that some of my works would be on the bonfire. However the books facing the death sentence "cover a range of topics like bibliography, religion, philosophy and computer science". Intellectual stuff — nothing of mine there. But is any book so unwanted that it should be pulped? Warwick Jordan, the standard bearer for second hand books, thinks not. Jordan started his second-hand book business from his Auckland garage in 1983 and eventually had nine outlets. His Hard To Find Books (But Worth the Effort) book stores were book lovers' meccas. The big move south came in 2013 when Jordan found just the place he needed to house 250,000 books. It was the 1873 Hallenstein building in Dowling St where once three hundred workers toiled making about 3000 garments each week "I love Dunedin: the people, the architecture and the climate," Jordan enthused. "I'm able to get a central-city location, the kind of space that would cost me $1million in Auckland." Container loads of books arrived in Dowling St and row upon row of shelving was gradually filled with thousands more books to now total 500,000. Among them were the personal libraries of Edmund Hillary, Robert Muldoon and David Lange. When my own big shift from Dunedin to Patearoa came along it was Jordan who turned up, offered a fair price and most of my books found a home at Hard To Find, including a few I should have held on to and may have to buy back. Many a university-type's library has found its way to Hard to Find and thus the lifetime collections of a professor of English or a highly respected historian await your perusal. Before long, the word spread and Dunedin's book lovers were making regular visits to the Dowling St treasure trove, using the irresistible chair lift at the front steps if they were getting on a bit. On cruise ship days you'd see the visitors happily clutching parcels of books they'd never find elsewhere. There's usually about three staff working at the Dowling St shop and when there's a vacancy applications flood in like the books themselves have. If you can talk your way into a guided tour behind the public area, you'll be in a bibliophile heaven. Stretching before you in every direction books, books and more books. Not arranged as you might find in a library but shelved as they arrive in an efficient system known only to the staff. Thus, the joy of tumbling upon the unexpected. But Jordan's David and Goliath battles with two formidable adversaries, the Catholic Church and the National Library, are making times tough for a man dedicated to books. Over 20 years ago the National Library was also in disposal mode and Jordan tendered successfully for about 30,000 books. More recently the library offered 45,000 books to Lions clubs to sell as fundraisers. Jordan believes only about 5000 books were sold and the library gave him the leftovers. Now, with another 500,000 books on death row, Jordan knows what type of book is involved. He believes about two-thirds of them would find a buyer and admits the rest could be junk which no-one wants. He knows his books and I wish him success. On the other hand, troubled waters for Hard To Find Books in Auckland could benefit the Dowling St treasure house. Jordan told the ODT last week he was looking at relocating all the Auckland shop's stock to Dunedin even though Dowling St was "already pushing it for space". If that happens it's "highly likely" Dunedin would become its sole retail outlet. Meanwhile Jordan is off to London to pick up an International Antiquarian Bookdealers' Study Scholarship to the University of London. Dunedin has been home to the country's largest second-hand book shop in the past when Newbold's in George St reigned supreme. Hard To Find Books in Dowling St carries the banner today and may yet be even larger, thanks to Jordan, the man who believes too many books is never enough. I'll drink to that — a red, of course. - Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
