Taxacom: Old journals

[Neil Snow]

Just speaking for myself, working at a mid-sized publicly funded state
institution with somewhat limited botanical holdings (my specialty)...

...but in several cases "old" journals or books that had been set aside for
the dumpster at my institution several years ago have been needed in the
interim to help solve taxonomic problems of various sorts.  This included a
volume of Flora Neotropica (60 volumes of which had been destined for said
dumpster), 5 volumes of Fl. Europea, and (just last week) a copy of New
Britton & Brown that helped nail down the identity of a hybrid species of
hawthorns (Crataegus).

Glad I saved them from an untimely demise, and....why do institutions want
to throw away (literally) thousands of dollars worth of publications?
Shelf space cannot always be the answer.

N. Snow