1. Book Disposal Gets Clarified
BY LISA BURGOA
MANAGING EDITOR
As soon as the last bell of the first quarter rang on Oct. 23, senior Gaby Crayton marched
deliberately to the burly blue dumpsters outside the football field and peered inside. What she
found immediately conjured up images of fire and plumes of smoke, of incense and burning
paper.
“I thought to myself, this is ‘Fahrenheit 451’ all over again,” said Crayton, who had
ventured out to the dumpsters after a friend tipped her off of its contents.
Inside, tossed amid crumpled newspapers and garbage bags, were books.
Upon closer inspection, Crayton couldn’t find anything wrong with the books – there
were no rips or tears that she could see, and they appeared, in her opinion, to be in perfectly good
condition. She said she couldn’t fathom why the books would be disposed in such a way.
“I was disgusted and kind of sad because we kind of take books for granted sometimes,
but they are something that’s important to not only us but everybody,” she said. “It was
heartbreaking to me that they could be thrown away like that, especially since they looked like
they were in good condition.”
Incensed by her discovery, Crayton created an online petition that night calling for
Broward County Schools’ donation of used school books to underprivileged schools. Within a
week, it had garnered over 100 signatures, with some from as far away as New York and
Virginia.
According to media specialist Terri Nelson, the books had been disposed improperly as a
result of a miscommunication between the school board and the media center staff. In order to
uphold the quality of the media center, the county mandates that fewer than 50 percent of the
media center’s collection of books be older than 15 years.
Despite the initial confusion, all the books that had been thrown away have been
recuperated and dispatched to a book depository, Ms. Nelson said.
“There are books in the library that have been collecting dust for years," she said. "It's our
job to make sure our collection is as up-to-date as possible, and we do that by going through our
books and weeding out titles that may not be as relevant to students."
Weeding, the systematic removal of outdated materials in a media center, is essential in
the maintenance of a library, said district curriculum supervisor of library media Lynne Oakvik.
“The media center isn’t and shouldn’t be a museum for books,” she said. “There are
going to be books like ‘The Scarlet Letter’ that every media center has a copy of because it’s a
timeless classic that will speak to readers for just about forever, but for a lot of books there is
simply not enough space to contain all the new materials that come along.”
Ms. Oakvik said she was unsurprised by the outcry of students after books were
improperly disposed.
“Books are powerful symbols to many people, and it’s natural for there to be sensitivity
in seeing them laid to waste,” she said. “But our library procedures send all books to a

2. depository, and they remain accountable in our inventory. They would never, ever be just thrown
away.”
Media specialist Carol Brown said even more weeding will take place as the media center
adapts to technological advancements, and she said over the next few years the center will be
restructured to contain more e-books than books in print.
“It’s not my place to say whether the restructuring is good or bad, as long as it gets
students reading,” Ms. Brown said. “Circulation goes down every year, and I have students come
in to get my signature for field trips proudly tell me that they never have checked out a book in
all their years of high school. I wish students would read more books in print, but as they say, if
dreams were horses, then beggars would ride.”
Crayton said the enthusiasm for her petition demonstrates that students care about books
and promoting literacy in their community.
“It was very heart-warming for me to see that so many people cared what was
happening,” she said. “There’s this stereotype that young people don’t care about books or
reading, or really anything at all, but I think that the 100 signatures on my petition prove
otherwise.”