OUT WITH THE OLD
Red Bank library is getting rid of old books and replacing them with updated editions. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Deborah Griffin-Sadel pulled a book from a shelf of the Red Bank Public Library, as she and her staff have been doing the last couple months, and surveyed it.
It was a French language book, she said, and “the pictures in it were really dated. The lady was dressed up like Jackie Kennedy. Y’know, men walking around in 1950s-era suits.”
The library is scattered with these kinds of artifacts: books copyrighted in the ’60s, reference materials that pre-date Google and tattered classics that deserve better than to be bound with masking tape.
The library’s latest effort to avert its own obsolescence is to replace those outdated and damaged books with new ones, a move that’s long overdue, said Griffin-Sadel, the library director.
