Ontario, Canada, school purges books published before 2008

A Canadian public high school has sparked outrage for removing all books published before 2008 in a so-called push to make its library more inclusive for students.

Erindale Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario, culled roughly 50% of its library books — including the Harry Potter and “Hunger Games” series — under a new “equity-based book weeding” directive implemented by the Peel District School Board earlier this year, CBC News reported.

“This year, I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books,” 10th-grader Reina Takata said.
The student said she had been bracing for such a purge after administrators warned her at the end of the previous school year: “If the shelves look emptier right now, it’s because we have to remove all books [published] prior to 2008.”