In the last year a library bought 237 new books and removed 67 books. There were 5745 books in the l

In the last year a library bought 237 new books and removed 67 books. There were 5745 books in the library at the end of the year. How many books were in the library at the start of the year

Let the starting book count be b. We have:

• We start with b books
• Buying 237 books means we add (+237)
• Removing 67 books means we subtract (-67)
• We end up with 5745 books

Our change during the year is found by the equation:
b + 237 - 67 = 5745

To solve for b, we type this equation into our search engine and we get:
b = 5575