Comment by tokai

I worked at an university library that was being moved to a new, and smaller, location. We did a lot of weeding. I threw thousands of books in the dumpster. We had to be covert in our work so the student body wouldn't act up. Much like the author here.

No library will ever just throw books out randomly. Most works are available from many dozen of other libraries and not even close to lost if thrown out. Inter library loan insures that they can always be gotten should a user need them. Shelve space is not infinite, and books not being used out blocks space for works that are in use.

Tools like worldcat and familiarity with the fields the library's collection cover, helps avoid weeding rare and unique works. Librarians are well aware of their library's forte. A single library isn't the world repository of knowledge. The network of collaboration between all national and academic libraries is.