> To what degree is preservation the responsibility of a local lending library? (As opposed to an archive; a museum; the Library of Congress; county courthouses; etc?)
Personally, I would say even local lending libraries have a part to play in preservation. They may have copies of local periodicals that exist nowhere else. They should at least do some due diligence with other, more common, items to make sure they don't discard anything that's potentially now unique or rare (e.g. a collection of unfashionable midcentury children's books that all libraries decided to purge around the same time). Stuff like that should be kept in an out of the way warehouse or something.
A local lending library shouldn't have to keep seldom used books in easily accessible circulation, but I feel there should be other options besides that, pulping, and digitization.
Still not sure the local library should be responsible for the actual preservation, but I like your idea on principle -- maybe having a more central organization or archive handle the preservation and coordinate determining what needs preserving (e.g. how is that local library to know that every other library in the country pulped that particular children's book 10 years ago?)
Personally, I would say even local lending libraries have a part to play in preservation. They may have copies of local periodicals that exist nowhere else. They should at least do some due diligence with other, more common, items to make sure they don't discard anything that's potentially now unique or rare (e.g. a collection of unfashionable midcentury children's books that all libraries decided to purge around the same time). Stuff like that should be kept in an out of the way warehouse or something.
A local lending library shouldn't have to keep seldom used books in easily accessible circulation, but I feel there should be other options besides that, pulping, and digitization.