From the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa:

We’ve made a decision about the items remaining from the Overseas Published Collection (OPC), part of the Library’s general collections.

Following an analysis of the recently approved General Collections Removal Policy, we have decided to securely dispose of the remaining items, starting immediately.

As a reminder, and for those who may not be aware, in 2019 the Library announced our decision to remove c.600,000 items from the OPC, and that we were seeking to find a home for as many of those books as possible.  This was a decision approved by the then Minister as per the requirements of section 9(3) of the National Library Act.

These items are well past their usefulness as part of a lending collection, with most never issued for over 30 years and only 1% requested in 2017-2018, they are taking up valuable space, and do not meet our relevant collection policy for retention.

Since starting the project, the Library has received a range of views about what should happen to these books. We appreciate that book removal generates a high level of interest, and we thank all who engaged constructively with the Library throughout the process.

The library undertook a range of activities and strategies to attempt to find an appropriate home for the items, including:

• About 48,000 items selected by other libraries in NZ and overseas, including items added to the Turnbull General Collection
• About 50,000 items donated to charity (Lions and Rotary), for their books sales, which received very modest public interest in the sale.
• Donate the remaining items to the Internet Archive for them to digitise for access. This process was not progressed.

 More information is available here.

As the National Library of New Zealand with a lending collection, it’s our role to manage that collection well and implement routine and regular removal and disposal of items as part of good collection management, like all libraries with lending collections. We continue to build collections and connect New Zealanders with more electronic resources to support their research and information needs.

In future, a schedule of any planned removals from the general collection will be developed and published on the National Library’s website to make transparent our collection management activities (at a much smaller scale).