There is nothing unusual about barbequing over a long holiday weekend ... unless you use books as charcoal briquettes. A Kansas City bookstore decided to burn all of the books they couldn't sell over the Labor Day weekend. This is the second time they have done this; the first time was over Memorial Day weekend. Tom Wayne the owner of Prospero's Books said he is protesting "what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word." He said he had over 20,000 books which he could not give away to thrift stores or local libraries. See for Yourself: Tom Wayne on YouTube . If someone called our library and asked us to pick up 20,000 used books, I would have to politely decline the offer. Twenty-thousand books is A LOT of books, and there would be considerable costs involved in hauling, storing, sorting, and processing those "free" books. Unfortunately if no one wanted to buy them, there is a high probability that no one would want to check them out from the library.

Cindy Fuerst
Library Director