500,000 used books trashed
The Montreal Gazette reports that 500,000 used books have been destroyed by a municipal council in one of the city’s suburbs. They belonged to bookseller Paul Saindon, who was evicted from his bookstore. The building’s owner threatened to dump the books and the council took possession of them. Apparently, they failed to find anyone interested in taking the books. I wonder how hard they tried.
February 14th, 2007 at 9:33 am
Oh, the humanity! Seriously though, this verges on criminal. What kind of soceity do we live in? Why didn’t they donate them to libraries?
February 14th, 2007 at 10:25 am
I wonder if they tried the local library. Or a series of libraries. Or all the libraries in the country who accept donated books. Or public school libraries. Or other bookstores. Or employees. Or gifts at some public function.
Or any logical option.
February 14th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I can tell you that they did not make any offers to local book dealers, not this one anyways. My shop is about 2 km from Mr. Saidon’s and I would have loved to acquire these. If the city would have inquired, we definitely could have warehoused this collection.
Bruce
Zeeba Books
February 14th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
What a shame in destroying 500,000 used books. As a bookworm and college senior majoring in English Lit when I heard that unfortunate situation, it pissed me off. Donating them to a local library or a school would have been more useful than destroying them. Obviously,this city council either doesn’t care about the nurturing side of reading or just has no logic (which I wouldn’t be surprised about) and common sense. That what happens when we let politics get involved.