North Country Cadence in the literary history of the Duluth

David Beard Jun 30, 2025 2 Comments

For some reason, the Duluth Public Library decided to deaccession some of its reference Minnesota collection.

Anyway, it’s been a bonanza as I prepare for my Minnesota Writers class this fall.

Here are copies of the tables of contents for several issues of North Country Cadence. If you were involved in this publication and are willing to be interviewed by my students, let me know.

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2 Comments

David Beard

about 3 weeks ago 

It has been brought to my attention that my original post overstated the depth of the deaccessioning of the Minnesota collection. While a large number of books were deaccessioned or weeded, some of what was deaccessioned were duplicates.  

I say "some" because of the four items I have thusfar posted to PDD, two do in fact remain in in the DPL catalog in other copies, and two do not remain in the catalog. (If the library retained copies of those books, they have inadvertently deleted the catalog record and made them unintentionally unavailable to the public. Or, perhaps, some of the works I purchased were fully removed.)

Nonetheless, I did think that 100% of the items I purchased were deaccessioned/weeded completely from the collection, and that was an error. I regret creating that impression.

Matthew James

about 2 weeks ago 

Even if the library still retains a copy, I think it's an issue worth discussing. I would hope that local items would be evaluated based on their need for preservation because of their artistic merit and value to the community, rather than evaluated based on their use or circulation. If the library gets rid of its second copy of a Patrick Swayze biography because nobody has checked out either copy in 30 years, I'd pick it up at the book sale without any concerns about the decision to sell it. If Netflix does a documentary series and there is a sudden resurgence in interest in Patrick Swayze, they can order 10 new copies. 

But with these materials, I don't see an opportunity to reorder. I can't find a mention of these works online, much less a bookstore that carries them. So if the last copy gets lost or stolen or misplaced or someone spills coffee on it or rips out a page with their favorite poem, no one will be able to evaluate the loss. Maybe a missing volume in the series just had a bunch of embarrassingly amateur poems. Or maybe when someone tore that page out of the library's only copy, they took home with them the last publicly available poem of Duluth's own Emily Dickinson.  

Digitization might seem like a solution -- I've enjoyed the selection of local poems that you have shared here -- but as this guide from a library association notes, digital copies come with their own challenges and often end up lasting for far shorter periods than physical copies. And whether its a physical copy or a digital one, having a backup is always the safest approach. All of which is to say that I definitely find this a worthwhile discussion and appreciate you raising the issue with the library.

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