Here is an update and a correction to the numbers in my letter “Readers Write: GN Library discards books, fails readers” in your issue of Nov. 25, 2016, page 66 about the massive discard of books at our Great Neck Library.
In that letter, I provided eyeball estimates of the remaining number of cartons of books that came out of storage only to face being discarded.
There are 500 cartons of books, by staff count, in the back room at the Parkville branch of the library.
This is greater than the estimate of 300 to 350 in my letter.
The estimate of the 400 to 500 downstairs at Main remains an estimate.
The low end of the estimate, 400, combined with the 500 at Parkville equals 900.
At an average of 30 books a carton this equals 27,000 books (not the 8,000 in my letter).
At least 27,000 books are still in peril, in danger of imminent discard.
The total discarded since 2014 is more than 125,000 volumes: first editions, signed copies, limited-run and numbered copies, oversized art books, illuminated manuscripts….
Rebecca Rosenblatt Gilliar
Great Neck
Readers Write: 27K books may be discarded
