Ealing Council Selling Off Library Books For Seven Pence

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Over 6,000 titles disposed of through company that resells on eBay

Ealing council is selling books for as little as 7 pence each from libraries under threat in the borough.

Council figures show since February last year 6,286 books were sold to Revival, a company that specialises in on-selling, rehoming and recycling old books. In exchange the council received £440.02. Campaigners trying to save Ealing’s seven threatened libraries have voiced concern about the sales.

Councillor Jasbir Anand, Ealing’s cabinet member for business and community services, said many councils used companies like Revival to recycle old and damaged library books which have negligible commercial value.

He said: “Most of our unwanted stock is recycled using environmentally-friendly processes and Revival also works with charities to find alternative homes for books that may be of use to other libraries and communities.

“Some books are subsequently identified by Revival as having market value, and the council receives a small commission on successful sales.

“Typically this raises a few hundred pounds every year – reinvested in new stock for the borough’s libraries.”

A council spokesman said the partnership was not about trying to raise revenue. He said the arrangement likely saved the council money because it meant they were saved the cost of disposal in other ways, and that Revival was accredited by the Environment Agency.

Decisions to remove books from library stock were based on a number of factors, including condition and whether anyone has requested to borrow the book.

However, Save Ealing’s Libraries organiser Grace Quansah described the sale of public library books as “an absolute travesty”.

She said: “To sell them to Revival for 7 pence is an insult to those involved in the publication of the book.”

“It devalues the books’ worth. More importantly though most of the books that were sold off to Revival cost a lot of money.”

“For example, some of the talking books cost over £70 each and were sold at a flat rate of 7p.”

She said Revival were known to sell many of the books they purchased online, saying one West Ealing resident had even purchased one of them and had been surprised to find a library stamp on it.

Revival’s website states the company sells books through a variety of third party portals including Amazon, Abebooks, Ebay.co.uk, Alibris and Play.com.

Customers also have the option to purchase the company’s more expensive books directly, either through email or over the phone.

The website reads: “We work with over 20 Public Library Services across the UK as well as a number of University Libraries and College Libraries.

“We also work with many Charities and collect and process thousands of books each week.”

Revival were contacted for comment for this article.

Ian Anstice, editor of Public Libraries News, said this kind of arrangement isn’t unusual and was necessary in order to keep library offerings up to date.

Mr Anstice said: “All public libraries need to replace bookstock. A library that does not replace books is one that is not buying enough new books.”

“A normal book can be loaned up to 40 times so a library service gets serious value for money from it before withdrawing it and it’s normally only withdrawn when it is in poor condition, no longer popular or if the shelves are lacking space.”

“When it is withdrawn, most library services then try to sell the book to the public. If this does not happen then, as libraries have only limited space, the option is to sell the book to a company like Revival. 7p is not a large amount but the other option would be to bin it, which is a horrible idea, and comes with its own costs.”

The books sent to revival were a mix of fiction, non-fiction, out of date reference books and children books, council said.

Ealing is proposing seven of its branch libraries are run as community managed libraries. The council will still own and provide stock for community managed libraries. If no volunteers can be found to run the libraries and they were to close, it remains unclear what would happen to their book stock.

Protesters gather outside one of Ealing's threatened libraries. Credit: Save Ealing Libraries

The spokesman also pointed to the council’s new strategy to move away from hardcopy newspapers and provide customers with more choice. A PressReader subscription was launched in Ealing libraries last week that provides access to all the newspapers and magazines that customers may want to access in one place over 7,000 publications from 111 countries and 60 languages.

The spokesman said: “There is no way we would have been able to provide this quality of resource in hard copies in libraries for customers.”

Ged Cann - Local Democracy Reporter

9 January 2019