An exhibition in Tokyo is showcasing 37 books and a magazine supplement that were removed from commercial circulation for reasons other than poor sales. The exhibition, titled Books that have disappeared from bookstores - exhibition of exhausted or recalled books, is presented by the museum of the College of Humanities and Sciences of Nihon University in the Tokyo Setagaya district. The Japanese term kaishu, used in the context, refers to the recall of circulating copies, not a censorship measure decided by public authorities. The exhibition aims to observe what happens when a publisher wants to bring back a title already sent into the commercial circuit. The National Library of the Diet announced the initiative on September 24 on its professional portal Current Awareness, specifying that the selected pieces disappeared from new bookstores for reasons other than poor sales. Their journey is retraced using notices detailing the circumstances and the information available on their removal. The reasons for removal include incorrect information, content taken without attribution, and scandals involving people related to the publication. Some titles had their first print recovered before being replaced by a corrected print, while others left the market without any new version being produced. Some have finally remained available or have returned to the shelves after having gone through the controversy. This complicates the task of anyone who would like, a few years later, to reconstruct these editorial accidents. Because the recall of a book does not necessarily produce many public archives. According to the Internet Museum, booksellers and libraries are informed when copies need to be recovered, but the information circulates little beyond the sector. A definitive removal from commerce, on the other hand, is usually not announced. Even when a media reports on it, the trace can quickly disappear. It was therefore necessary to proceed in reverse: find clues, identify the references concerned, and then physically find the copies on the second-hand market. Some had meanwhile acquired a value higher than their initial selling price. If they were no longer commercially desirable for their original publisher, they had become interesting for collectors. Removed from commerce, not necessarily unfindable. The title of the exhibition therefore deserves a nuance. These books have indeed "disappeared" from the new shelves, but several continue to circulate among book dealers. Others are kept in libraries. The Internet Museum emphasizes this paradox: the pieces gathered are not necessarily rare. It is precisely this that makes their interest. Their documentary value lies less in the difficulty of finding them than in what they tell about the production of books and their incidents: error discovered too late, unreported borrowing, affair involving a collaborator, emergency correction, commercial withdrawal. The organizers consider that these cases provide information on the problems encountered by the publishing sector and on the forms of expression that a society considers acceptable at a given time. In other words, editorial waste also ends up producing history. The exhibition, organized by Nihon University and its museum with the collaboration of Teru Agata, director of the library of the University of Asia and professor specializing in information and library sciences, remains free until December 4. Thirty-seven opportunities, therefore, to find in showcase what the industry once asked to be removed from the shelves.