Definition
The practice of donating old used books that burden rather than assist communities.
In Context
- "...there is some sensitivity in Africa to being the recipient of the West's unwanted or secondhand surplus goods, and sometimes well-intentioned gifts of educational materials have been criticized by their recipients as examples of "book dumping" - equivalent, that is, to garbage disposal or to the removal to Africa of European and American toxic wastes."
- "2003 Donna Nixon, "From North Carolina to KwaZulu Natal: World Library Partnership," North Carolina Libraries, Winter 2003, pp. 146-151. Many book donation programs, though well-intentioned, engage in “book dumping,” a practice of shipping old used books that burden rather than assist communities."
- "... the unfortunate reality for much of the developing world has been that a combination of book dumping, poverty and underfunding of libraries has severely limited the ability of librarians to collect relevant, high-quality resources (Sturges, 2014; Edem, 2010; Otike, 1993)."