Can I keep the damaged book after paying for it, and what happens to the damaged book?
Your fees are paying for a new item. You are not buying a damaged book. Damaged items remain the library's property to be disposed of in the same way as other items withdrawn from the collection.
Withdrawn books are handled in two ways:
After the library board and county commissioner approval, they are sold during the Friends of the Library book annual book sale. There is a public notice announcing sale of surplus property. The Friends try to sell items for a year before a volunteer takes books up to recycling at the University of Wyoming and strips the bindings from them. The pages are then recycled, and the binding thrown away—bindings are not recyclable
Badly damaged items are thrown away. Examples of serious damage include missing signatures, animals chews, mysterious or unpleasant smells such as kerosene or urine, unpleasant stains such as orange juice, cocoa, bath water.
What is too “badly damaged” to keep in the collection is subjective. The same book can be just fine to one person and repulsive to another. We have seen urine, juice, lipstick, crumbs, water, kerosene, wine, and blood on library materials, and tend to be more critical rather than more accepting. A book with pages falling out or stained with known liquid would be fine for an individual to keep at home, read and re-read. The library’s standard is different because we work with the public, a book drop, and with people with various immune deficiencies.