Accountability Checked Out, Part Three
The Books
This matter has now garnered the attention of the local and national media.
Here are links to the articles:
January 7, 2026
London high school library’s 10,000-book cull sparks censorship debate
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/london-high-school-librarys-10000-book-cull-sparks-censorship-debate
January 8, 2026
Trustees: We were unaware of mass removal of London school’s library books
https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/board-trustees-say-mass-removal-of-beal-library-books-was-never-disclosed
January 8, 2026
London high school library’s 10,000-book cull sparks censorship debate
https://nationalpost.com/news/local-news/london-high-school-librarys-10000-book-cull-sparks-censorship-debate
As a result of these articles, there have been requests to view the list of the books removed and destroyed.
Therefore, in the interest of public transparency, here is the spreadsheet list of books purged from the H.B. Beal Secondary School Library in 2025.
As public assets, their destruction represented by this data belongs to the public and they have a right to know.
The spreadsheet has been revised from the original report to accurately reflect the exact number of books and titles deleted, as there were other database entries that slightly skewed the data. However this did not make a significant material difference to the end result, in that overall, the number of books deleted is actually greater than the 10,000 reported, and the total value lacked proper context.
NOTES:
- A total of 10,170 books were deleted, with a recorded value of CA$182,215.53. This is not an accurate reflection of the total value and is significantly undervalued, as there are many records with no value, and none of the values reflect present replacement cost.
- Regardless, many titles are out of print and not available, making their value virtually priceless.
- ‘1984’ appears at the top of the list only because the spreadsheet is sorted by title, but it is an interesting and completely relevant ‘coincidence.’
- If there were multiple copies of the same book that met the retention criteria, typically only one copy was retained, which is why you will notice titles such as ‘1984’ deleted.
- Although all the yearbooks were deleted from the database, the books remained physically in the Library (at least they were as of the day I retired). This would seem to be an attempt to affect the collection age (the average of publication dates), by removing ‘old’ titles to fit their arbitrary fixation on a collection age number of 10-15 years (2010 currently).
To check the current collection and verify a title, check the H.B. Beal Library online catalogue:
https://tvdsb.insigniails.com/Library/Home?LibraryID=2140
January 11, 2026 UPDATE
A revised version of the spreadsheet has been posted, with the addition of a second sheet where the titles are sorted by call number and then by author and title.
What follows below is a breakdown of how many books were deleted from each section.
For reference the Dewey classification system is as follows:
000s: General Works, Computer Science, Information
100s: Philosophy & Psychology
200s: Religion
300s: Social Sciences
400s: Language
500s: Natural Sciences & Mathematics
600s: Technology (Applied Sciences)
700s: The Arts & Recreation
800s: Literature & Rhetoric
900s: History & Geography
Fiction titles (FIC) are alphabetical by author’s last name.
The breakdown by subject classification:
000 84
100 180
200 122
300 1427
400 37
500 557
600 1147
700 1127
800 773
900 1551
E 28 (children’s literature; for Writer’s Craft and ELL); many more
uncatalogued titles were deleted from this collection
FIC 2269
FRE 10 (French titles)
GRA 57 (graphic texts)
PRO 42 (professional collection)
REF 758 (Reference; across all classifications)*
SPA 1 (seems to a placeholder; unknown)
TOTAL: 10,170
* This includes 49 H.B. Beal S.S. yearbooks from as early as 1968 through to 2023-2024. These remained in the Library as of August 29, 2025. It is unknown the rationale for this deletion; see the note above. What’s notable is they are all listed with a publication date of 1960, for which I have no explanation.