true of circulating libraries. These have limited space. While most librarians would like to be able to keep everything, you do that at the expense of patron's ease of use and "relevancy" of the collection. If people walk into a library and are confronted by scores of books that you are not at all interested in, they tend to give up and leave. What you want is an archival or academic library. The maintenance of a large collection is integral to the operation of these libraries, and they are unlikely to wantonly cull books. All libraries have a focus. If you disregard the focus it is unlikely that they will be very interested in your collection. OTOH librarians are "information professionals" and recognize the value of information. Ask (a MLS librarian) and they will probably direct you somewhere where your collection will be used (provided they aren't rushing around - library directors are finding out that nondegreed paraprofessionals are cheaper, leaving more work for the MLSes) Key word is city. Larger county and multi-county systems are doing O.K. Not that long ago, Washington had a proposition to eliminate a library district (to "reduce taxes") go down in flames. And you discribe the reason for the existance of most government programs of any value.