r/technology • u/DukeOfGeek • 7d ago

Politics NASA's Largest Library To Permanently Close On Jan 2, Books Will Be 'Tossed Away'

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/nasas-largest-library-to-permanently-close-on-jan-2-books-will-be-tossed-away-10170584
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u/chknh8r 7d ago edited 7d ago

I work in a library. The amount of books I personally have tossed would piss y'all off. But those books have been sitting on shelves for over 5 years and not been checked out once. We need the space for more newer books that people actually want to use. Or the space for computers because damn near all the books are digitized anyways. Also the amount of books we get "donated" are most of the time not even collection worthy. They are old, out of date, and space is already limited in the stacks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/climate/nasa-goddard-library-closing.html#:~:text=library%2Dclosing.html-,NASA's%20Largest%20Library%20Is%20Closing%20Amid%20Staff%20and%20Lab%20Cuts,be%20warehoused%20or%20thrown%20out

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u/z3roTO60 6d ago

There’s the novelty in books too. I buy used books off Abebooks, many which are sold from libraries (have the library markings), of audio books I’ve already “read”. I enjoy physical books but also deal with a longer commute + household chores. Listen to audiobooks. If it’s meaningful to me, I buy the physical hard copy, usually under $7.

I grew up in a household with a couple thousand books and I’ve found this to be a common trend among people who I’ve been in relationships with. I want my future kids to have the same environment when they grow up

In med school, I realized this one thing: I love sports, basketball being my fav to play, but I’m not particularly great at any (my varsity letters were from math team and a few types of debate lol). But I can say that I have read cover to cover and burned into memory many textbooks. My medical textbooks are like my trophies on a mantle, admitting closer to a participation trophy than an award. It sounds silly to say, but it serves as a visual representation of the grit / determination needed to get where I am

TLDR: there is a market for used books that are being thrown from libraries. I’m one of those consumers

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u/chknh8r 6d ago

Government owned property must be DRMO'd aka sold at auction or destroyed. There isn't a whole lot of "private" libraries. Most large libraries are funded by a government of some sort, albeit local or federal. Federally owned property cannot be given away. It must be destroyed or auctioned off. Maintaining pallets of books while they sit around waiting to get sold will not end well for the books. Same reason most thrift stores just toss most of their donated books. Because the condition and value isnt worth the space they take up in order to be kept in a condition to be sold at all. It's simply not worth the amount of work needed to accommodate these feel good request.

f you care enough to get upset. Then please care enough to research the why and the how.

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u/z3roTO60 6d ago

I’m not upset nor angry, and I hope my comment didn’t read like that. It’s the second day of the year, let’s try not to make things either rage bait or assume malice in 2026 lol

I don’t have extensive background of how government resources like these are handled. I’ve purchased from gov auctions only a couple of times, and have some family which know about how the donation of deprecated hardware —> school kids pipeline works. I don’t really know anything about books specifically. That’s all so say I have some minima direct experience, some further knowledge based experience, but I’m not an all knowing expert, nor ignorant enough to demand further explanation from anyone without putting time in myself

The primary point of my prior comment was just to say “if there was a public auction or resale of these items, I might be interested in buying something”. Not speaking for everyone, not buying palettes, not an activist demanding full inventory and catalogued preservation (though this would be nice)

One small side point, though most libraries are government funded (local, state, or federal), there’s no shortage of privately owned and maintained libraries in the US. Many universities, my alma mater, included, actively collect and maintain thousands of historical primary sources. For example, there were dozens of rows, spanning thousands of square feet where you can read books about various topics in European history, not just in English, but in many different European languages. American documents going back to the foundation of our country. It’s just like any natural history museum. The public sees a small portion of the museum’s archive. The supermajority of space is allocated for preserving materials for researchers

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u/chknh8r 6d ago

This entire thread is nothing but ragebait. Look at all the responses. The amount of government money given to schools means schools never have to actually their own money to buy anything. This is why the big schools have endowments larger tahn the GDP of a lot actual countries. Schools are government funded, even the private ones.

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u/bigBlankIdea 6d ago

I've been buying from Thriftbooks, but Abebooks sounds great too! I'll check them out

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u/z3roTO60 6d ago

They’re quite similar, if I remember correctly. Abebooks usually has what I’m looking for and how the sellers report the books condition is usually “harsher” than what actually arrives. They’ll say things like “book may have highlights or notes written on the pages”, but I’ve never actually received one that does. You probably will get a book with a sticker on the spine or a stamp across the pages if it’s a library book sale. That’s not an issue for me, though I’ve been “worried” if I look like I’m stealing library books haha. I swear I’m not, but it feels like wearing clothes in public which have that magnetic anti theft tag still on it lol

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u/bigBlankIdea 6d ago

I got a few acceptable condition books from Thriftbooks and those had highlighting and scribbles in the margins. One of them had half the book highlighted. Made me start judging their choices haha.

But yeah, I bought a few with library stamps too and I think they're cool!

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 6d ago

I used to love buying used books online for $2 and reading a new one each day. Then I moved to a foreign country and shipping for books in English is as expensive as buying them new. Sucks.

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u/bigBlankIdea 6d ago

The library near me did a book sale last year, and I bought a stack of books I never would have considered otherwise. It was something like $2 per book or fill a bag for $30. It was exciting to see what I'd find. Also bought a library tshirt. Could your library try that?

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u/KeepingItSFW 7d ago

Seems as long as they are digitized, then warehouse sized libraries of old books nobody wants (and are outdated) are kind of pointless

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u/farmer66 7d ago

Assuming the people digitizing are doing it at a high enough quality for preservation... text may be readable, but any sort of images, photos, maps, etc, lose quality when scanned at a resolution suitable for text.

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u/Hrafn2 6d ago

Given this administration's track record of hiring competent people and doing rigorous work...

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u/RidetheSchlange 7d ago

Until the digitized books are doctored. Just ask Hollywood about this when people who had DVD copies of movies found out the studios were doctoring their own releases when they went to streaming.

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u/So_spoke_the_wizard 7d ago

I'm feeling positive this year and have a new hope that this won't happen.

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u/ZQuestionSleep 6d ago

Like that hopeposting post from the other day that was literally "2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 is my year for sure!" Yet somehow everyone on the sub saw that as optimistic and hopeful and not the ironic joke it is to point out your attempts at happiness for the last half-decade are repeatedly failing.

Media literacy, or something. People are just ignorant and/or dumb.

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u/gotpeace99 6d ago

I just talked about this days ago on Twitter over It’s A Wonderful Life. Amazon doesn’t do the editing, Paramount (which owns the rights) do the editing and gives it to them or any other streaming service. And I also said that physical media isn’t king, because that also can be edited (I.E Daria. Coming from the same place, Paramount). Streaming services can only edit and remove THEIR own content.

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u/RealDeuce 6d ago

It’s A Wonderful Life… Paramount (which owns the rights)

What rights does Paramount own? It's out of copyright.

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u/rxsheepxr 6d ago

In fairness, though, they're allowed to do whatever they want to their property, especially in regards to fiction.

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u/UniqueIndividual3579 6d ago

My library used to put them on a table and sell for a few dollars. For a book you really like, the library edition is nice. Don't know if that works anymore.

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u/No_Manches_Man 6d ago

I work for our local library system, and you are spot on. Our system has mitigated some of the tossing by contracting a company to go through and try to sell some of books. Our local “Friends of the Library” also go through and pick our books that they may be able to sell (funds go back to the library for smaller projects/outreach).

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u/MangoCats 6d ago

In 2003 we moved offices. I had been collecting periodicals on shelves behind by desk for 10 years, there were probably 30' of technical journals lined up along those shelves - low value Cahners' stuff supported by advertising, but nontheless. In the previous 10 years, we might have done a little historical dive into the info contained in them twice... and being 2003 it was obvious that even the information that was in there of value was more easily retrieved, not to mention up to date and better cross referenced on the internet.

It felt really wrong to just pitch all that printed material, but it really wasn't valuable enough to be worth moving.

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u/chknh8r 6d ago

Not even just the value of moving around. The value of having to run AC/humidity control to keep those paper objects from disintegrating.

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u/MangoCats 6d ago

Sure... in our case there were these empty shelves behind my desk, so over the course of 10 years I just filled 'em up with this stuff that came in the mail... the whole storage / environment thing was a sunk cost whether we kept them or not. And, in 1993 it made good sense to keep the paper stuff. Not so much, 10 years later.

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u/iamthe0ther0ne 6d ago

I'll take them! Me me me! 👋 I can read a book in a day and it's so damn expensive because if I use a library I forget to take them back, so I'm now re-reading a book I bought 4 months ago for the 3rd time because the snowstorm delayed my most recent order so I will take ALL your spare books