Published: Saturday, June 16, 2012 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Saturday, June 16, 2012 at 11:55 p.m.

A group of Nicholls students and alumni are protesting the school librarys practice of throwing away old books.

But school officials and a national university library spokesperson say the practice, known to librarians as weeding, is common.

Peter Jenkins, who graduated in May, said he heard about the practice in an off-hand comment from a friend who works at the library. When he stopped to look at the Dumpster where the books are discarded, he said he was shocked.

I dont think theres ever a time when you should just throw away books, he said. Theyre throwing away what looks like thousands of them. Its not just old medical textbooks, theyre throwing away Bibles, theyre throwing away popular books like (George Orwells) 1984.

Jenkins started an online petition asking Nicholls to stop throwing away the books. By Friday afternoon, the petition had gathered 86 supporters.

School officials said the discarded books are meant to make room for newer, more relevant texts.

Library Director Rob Bremer defended the practice in a campus-wide email sent Wednesday.

Like many individuals, we librarians value books and do not wish to see any thrown away, Bremer wrote. As professionals, we well recognize both the dangers of keeping out-of-date or incomplete books in a collection (and of giving them to others in need of accurate, current, full information) and the fact that, if out-dated, incomplete, worn or otherwise unsuitable books are not removed from a collection, there is no room for current and more suitable items.

Bremer said books are periodically weeded to bring the library up-to-date with standards passed down from the Library of Congress. Those standards are applied to all but one library in the University of Louisiana system and most research universities throughout the state.

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Nicholls library of old books upsets students