Here is a chilling line I came across while researching the history of our local public library: “all old records that were out of date were approved to be burned.” (This was during the Great Depression, at which time library administrators were dealing with an over-crowded Carnegie library building.) And thus I came to understand why there is a lacuna in the early record of the institution. Earlier in the century, the library had a policy of burning books that had been used by families during “a period of contagion.”
