>My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy.

These libraries do not coordinate the deaccessioning. If it ever gets down to 2 copies, there's a non-zero chance that they will deaccession their copies simultaneously, and then there are none.

You worked for a library. Did they ever check first to make sure some other library had a copy? Did they warn that other library "we're getting rid of ours, please don't get rid of yours"?

You’re so wrong.

‘“I think some faculty worry that everyone is going to discard willy nilly and then before you know it there won’t be anything left,” Walker said. “No, libraries have gotten together, research libraries and others, and joined a consortium called LOCKSS – Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe – and people have agreements like Harvard is the place that will always keep a print copy of x. And there’s multiple ones of all of it. So there’s backup in case Harvard gets blown away by a nor’easter or something.”’

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