Total of 500 excess Yale-NUS books disposed, remaining 8,500 to be given away at upcoming book fairs

In an earlier statement on May 21, NUS had apologised for not offering the excess library books to students before they were sent for disposal. PHOTOS: ST READER, COURTESY OF MS LEE JIAYING

Gabrielle Chan

UPDATED May 21, 2025, 06:58 PM

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SINGAPORE - A total of 500 books were taken away to be recycled, making up about 1 per cent of the total number of books in the Yale-NUS library.

Speaking to the media on May 21, NUS university librarian Natalie Pang said that 9,000 out of the total number of 45,000 books in the college’s library, were duplicates or had “low utilisation rate”.

The plan was to recycle these 9,000 books, as per the standard operating processes for NUS libraries when excess titles cannot be rehomed or given away.

The process for the remaining 8,500 books has since been halted since photos and videos of employees from a recycling company drawing sharp criticism from alumni and members of the public who called the disposal wasteful and distressing.

Associate Professor Pang said the excess books will instead be given away at two book fairs held in May and June. These will be open to all NUS students, alumni and to me mbers of the public, she added, with details to be announced soon.

She confirmed that the 500 books taken from Yale-NUS College on May 20 have since been disposed of.

Going forward, the university will introduce a new process for excess books, she said.

It currently first offers excess books to faculty members, rehomes them across its libraries, or offers them to other academic institutions. Recycling is always a “last resort”, she said. NUS now has six libraries.

Under the new process, NUS will reach out “more extensively” to faculty and other academic libraries, and will hold book adoption fairs for its students and alumni, as well as the public.

If the books are still not able to be rehomed, the university will work with second hand bookshops like Thryft, a thrift store based in Singapore for preloved books and other items.

“What I’m trying to do with this new standard operating procedure is to extend the shelf life of these books,” Prof Pang said.

“ We did not realise there was interest from students , and we did not actually make enough arrangements to actually allow students to have the opportunity to own those books,” she said, apologising for not extensively reaching out to faculty.

“I think there’s no two ways about it,” she said. “We have to own it, and we will do better.”

Piles of plastic bags containing books were spotted outside the Yale-NUS College library on May 20, prompting questions and concern from alumni. PHOTO: ST READER

In an earlier statement on May 21, before they were sent for disposal, calling it an “operational lapse”.

Prof Pang said the university had tried to contact the recycling company, Green Orange Enviro, at around 2pm on May 20 to request that the truck return the books , after learning of students’ interest.

However, the company declined, even after the university offered payment and manpower to help sort the books.

Yale-NUS College’s

The liberal arts institution, founded in 2011 through a partnership between Yale University and NUS, is being closed following an announcement in 2021 of its merger with NUS’ University Scholars Programme.

With the closure of Yale-NUS College, preparations to rehome its library books had been underway for about two years, Prof Pang said, adding that while the university routinely manages its library collection, the scale of this exercise was “significantly larger” than usual.

She also clarified that the books were not donated because the library was not aware of students’ interest, not because of any issue involving the books’ RFID tags - as claimed by some library staff at the scene on May 20, according to students’ accounts.

“In the past, in our experience organising these book giveaways - whether it’s for students or members of the NUS community, be it staff or faculty, there’s been quite a low demand for many of these titles that we put out,” Prof Pang said.

“But, this incident has also shown us that there are lessons to learn from this,” she added.

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