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Comment on India's food shortage filled American libraries

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Books are printed in quantities of more than one. I concede a fair amount of material might be the last copy extant, but isn't there an element of post-hoc rationalisation this impoverished stocks of Indian books?

I don't see any claims of negative ramifications being made

Todd Michelson-Ambelang, librarian for South Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, wonders if vast collections from the region in US and other Western libraries took away literary resources from the Indian sub-continent.

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Mr Michelson-Ambelang told the BBC that the removal of books from South Asia through programmes like PL-480 "creates knowledge gaps", as researchers from there often need to travel to the West to access these resources.

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It is unclear whether all the books acquired by US universities from India at that time are still available there. According to Maya Dodd, of India's FLAME University, many books now unavailable in India can be found in the University of Chicago's library collections, all marked with the stamp saying "PL-480".

Although a charitable reading is they aren't available because of decay.

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