p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- To, “have great research and a great university, you have to have the book resources as well,” says Ohio State University professor emeritus John Burnham.

With that in mind, he and nearly two dozen students and current and retired faculty members, “picketed in front of  Ohio State’s administration building to protest the school’s move to more electronic books and journals,” says the Columbus Dispatch.

Waving signs such as “Don’t take away our books” and “Shelves of books please not useless rhetoric,’” they asked the library director to, “find more shelf and storage space for the school’s growing collection”.

Protesters said Ohio State has discarded 275,000 books and other printed materials from 2005 to 2008 and an additional 55,000 in the past four months, says the story, adding »»»

“The 55,000 books are more than what the University of Minnesota system got rid of in all of last year, and the (total) is three times as many books as the University of Michigan has discarded over the same time,” said Kevin Boyle, a history professor.

“It kind of hurts our pride to have a larger number of lost books than Michigan.”

Joe Branin, director of OSU Libraries, couldn’t confirm those numbers, but he said the school added 161,118 books in the 2007-08 school year and removed 119,767. In the first three months of 2009, he said, Ohio State removed 43,578 items from its collections.

“There is more demand for e-books and e-journals than there is for print materials,” the story has Branin stating, also promising the school, “will continue to add books and other materials in both print and digital formats”.

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Columbus Dispatch – OSU book winnowing opposed, May 13, 2009