The disposal of bags of books from the former Yale-National University of Singapore College library has sparked anger from its alumni and the general public, who saw the move as symbolic of deeper institutional neglect after videos of the incident went viral.
NUS has issued a public apology for the “operational lapse”, which has also prompted an online petition. The incident has become the latest flashpoint in the saga of Yale-NUS, Singapore’s short-lived liberal arts experiment that is set to close its doors for good this year.
“We later understood that many students were interested in keeping the books, and we would usually have accommodated such requests,” associate professor Natalie Pang, a university librarian, said on Wednesday in a reply to queries from This Week in Asia. She did not disclose how many books were thrown away.
“We did not do so on this occasion and we apologise for the operational lapse,” she said, adding that the library’s excess books were “routinely rehomed” in other libraries or given away to faculty and students on certain occasions.
Those that were not taken up would then be sent for recycling, as per standard library practices, but the university would be organising a giveaway on campus, in light of the strong interest from students, Pang said. The school will review its processes and take steps to distribute excess books to the NUS and wider community in the future.
Pang’s statement comes a day after images and videos were posted online showing workers from a recycling firm loading plastic bags filled with books onto a truck – a scene that angered Yale-NUS graduates who viewed the disposal as careless and disrespectful.
