what happens to all the wonderful books when library's are closed

[c=7700B2][i]here in the uk, you often hear now of libraries shutting down, a really sad thing, but all the sacred books in the libraries? what happens to them? because many of them are irreplaceable, it would be a travesty if they destroyed the books.[/i][/c]

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ElwoodBlues · M

Sadly, they often do get pulped. The cost of properly storing 100,000 books can be prohibitive.

there's a thing called the Google Books Library Project which has been scanning millions of books stored in major research libraries; I don't know if it's reached the UK yet but I think it has.

Due to copyright issues, the project has focused more on old out of print and/or out of copyright titles. In addition to massive projects like this, some well-financed libraries have been scanning their older books and making the images available online.

The US Library of Congress is one such:
[b]https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/[/b]
[b]https://www.loc.gov/pictures/[/b]