Rob Van Tuinen: Trustees unaware of YCCD book disposal policies; one should go
Re “Rojas serves YCCD with distinction” (Letters, Oct. 3): The letter perfectly illustrates why our libraries are not safe in the hands of trustees like the writer and her fellow board member, Abe Rojas. While YCCD was spending $9 million to remodel MJC’s main library, the administration secretly destroyed 52,000 (70 percent) of our 75,000 books! There was no book sale and no notice to faculty, students or trustees. They just tossed all those treasured books into the trash.
The letter writer thinks this was just fine – an ordinary “weeding” process. In fact, this mass destruction violated library policies on “weeding,” which require consultation with academic faculty. And it violated California ed code, which requires prior trustee approval for putting large amounts of public property in the trash. They were in such a hurry to destroy our books they didn’t even keep a record of the titles being discarding. So, the writer has no idea which of those destroyed books we now have in electronic form.
When the library reopened, it looked like a computer lab – not a library. Until Young Americans for Liberty published the story in its campus newspaper, nobody could say where all the books had gone.
Rob Van Tuinen, Modesto
This story was originally published October 5, 2016 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Rob Van Tuinen: Trustees unaware of YCCD book disposal policies; one should go."