The National Library of New Zealand recently announced that they are going “to make more room for the New Zealand, Māori and Pacific collection”. While pleased at the emphasis placed on this important local material, the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand is very concerned about and laments the library’s decision to deaccession hundreds of thousands of books from its overseas published collections in the process.

While we understand the increasing pressures faced by libraries and that difficult decisions must on occasion be made, we find the sheer scale of such loss shocking and the criticism levelled at the library’s actions justified.

BSANZ calls for greater funding and support of physical collections throughout Australasia in order to not only ensure such collections are not further diminished and that other collections do not meet a similar fate.

Véronique Duché

BSANZ President, on behalf of the Executive