5 ms·

Why would this record even exist? What purpose does it serve?

dec0dedab0de 11y ago
Library books used to have a little pocket stuck to the back cover, with a lined card inside. If you wanted to borrow a book, you would take out the card, put your name on the next line, and give it to the librarian. When you gave the book back, the card was put back into the pocket. The system was to keep track of who had borrowed a book, so that they could be tracked down if it was not returned. I remember it being really fun in grade school, to realize I had checked out the same book as an older friend.
- gcb0 11y ago
  I'm from a more metropolitan area i guess. we used library card numbers on those instead of names
  - woodman 11y ago
    > I'm from a more metropolitan area i guess. I would be surprised if you are from somewhere more metropolitan than Kobe Japan [0]. It is much more likely that you are just young. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keihanshin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keihanshin
    - DawkinsGawd 11y ago
      Population density is considerably less than that of NYC. Scaling NYC up to 13,000 km² would put the population 90 million
      - woodman 11y ago
        The population density is also much less if we scaled the population of my apartment up to 13,000 km², but that isn't how metropolitan areas are traditionally measured. The NYC metro area includes three states, lots of sprawl - so it is much less dense.
  - Symbiote 11y ago
    I remember the local village library books only had dates on the borrowing slips. My library card was a 5x5cm card sleeve. If I borrowed something, the return date was stamped in the book, and on the book's removable 5x15cm slip. That slip was put inside my card, and probably ordered by due date in the librarian's index file. This was early 1990s in Britain.
- lfowles 11y ago
  Or to check out books that you didn't remember checking out before!
  - bitJericho 11y ago
    As a kid I enjoyed finding books that hadn't been checked out in decades or old books that had only one or two checkouts in its lifetime.
- zardo 11y ago
  I always enjoyed seeing the names of people who had read a book before me at the university library, and seeing how long it had sat on the shelf between readers. It was like joining a secret club that spanned generations.
- pmoriarty 11y ago
  "In early 1943, Ulam asked von Neumann to find him a war job. In October, he received an invitation to join an unidentified project near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The letter was signed by Hans Bethe, who had been appointed as leader of the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory by Robert Oppenheimer, its scientific director. Knowing nothing of the area, he borrowed a New Mexico guide book. On the checkout card, he found the names of his Wisconsin colleagues, Joan Hinton, David Frisch, and Joseph McKibben, all of whom had mysteriously disappeared. This was Ulam's introduction to the Manhattan Project, which was America's wartime effort to create the atomic bomb." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Ulam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Ulam
- slyall 11y ago
  Picture of a Library card: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Library_card.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Library_card.jpg The Browne Issue System appears to be what most small libraries used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browne_Issue_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browne_Issue_System
- electricblue 11y ago
  The studio ghibli movie, Whisper of the Heart has a plot point that revolves around this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_of_the_Heart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_of_the_Heart
danso 11y ago
Given that Murakami is 66-years-old, I imagine that the school he went to used paper and pencil/ink to record transactions, and like most school libraries, failed to hire someone properly certified in data retention regulations who would have properly disposed of those records...I'm only being half-facetious here..I think you're wondering if there is some machination resulting from a mass surveillance policy at play here...it could be something much more innocent: papers that are just stashed away in a school's storage room: > The cards were apparently leaked to the paper after a volunteer who once taught at the school came across them while he was sorting out old library books that were to be thrown away. The reason why we don't hear about these kinds of data leakages is because paper usually gets thrown away. Or a building burns down/floods. And also, paper records don't come up in a Google search (which is the extent of "research" for many people today). Why didn't the school back then have a policy of throwing away cards after x number of years? Probably for the same reason why anything was done before computers became so ubiquitous...we constantly underestimate how the power of computation and networking changes the accessibility of information. Back when I graduated from college (and by this time, Google was a major player), no one really complained about printing people's names (i.e. mostly students) in the police blotter. Now, I believe it is a rarity for a school newspaper that publishes online to also publish full names of the suspects, even though no federal/state laws have been passed that would require such discretion. The reason why this practice is now rare is pretty common-sensical to us today, but not so much when Google was still relatively new.
- bitJericho 11y ago
  Why would anybody want this information destroyed. Protected until the person is long dead sure, but destroyed? A lot can be learned by seeing what experiences someone has had. Would you not want to read what Plato had read? How about Jefferson or Tesla?
  - nkrisc 11y ago
    While I tend to agree with you, your position implies we possess an inherent right to that information. Do we inherently have the right to review all your private information, even after death?
cobaltblue 11y ago
It lets the police track down murderers, at least according to the plot of Se7en...

Library books used to have a little pocket stuck to the back cover, with a lined card inside. If you wanted to borrow a book, you would take out the card, put your name on the next line, and give it to the librarian. When you gave the book back, the card was put back into the pocket. The system was to keep track of who had borrowed a book, so that they could be tracked down if it was not returned. I remember it being really fun in grade school, to realize I had checked out the same book as an older friend.

gcb0 11y ago
I'm from a more metropolitan area i guess. we used library card numbers on those instead of names
- woodman 11y ago
  > I'm from a more metropolitan area i guess. I would be surprised if you are from somewhere more metropolitan than Kobe Japan [0]. It is much more likely that you are just young. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keihanshin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keihanshin
  - DawkinsGawd 11y ago
    Population density is considerably less than that of NYC. Scaling NYC up to 13,000 km² would put the population 90 million
    - woodman 11y ago
      The population density is also much less if we scaled the population of my apartment up to 13,000 km², but that isn't how metropolitan areas are traditionally measured. The NYC metro area includes three states, lots of sprawl - so it is much less dense.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  I remember the local village library books only had dates on the borrowing slips. My library card was a 5x5cm card sleeve. If I borrowed something, the return date was stamped in the book, and on the book's removable 5x15cm slip. That slip was put inside my card, and probably ordered by due date in the librarian's index file. This was early 1990s in Britain.
lfowles 11y ago
Or to check out books that you didn't remember checking out before!
- bitJericho 11y ago
  As a kid I enjoyed finding books that hadn't been checked out in decades or old books that had only one or two checkouts in its lifetime.
zardo 11y ago
I always enjoyed seeing the names of people who had read a book before me at the university library, and seeing how long it had sat on the shelf between readers. It was like joining a secret club that spanned generations.
pmoriarty 11y ago
"In early 1943, Ulam asked von Neumann to find him a war job. In October, he received an invitation to join an unidentified project near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The letter was signed by Hans Bethe, who had been appointed as leader of the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory by Robert Oppenheimer, its scientific director. Knowing nothing of the area, he borrowed a New Mexico guide book. On the checkout card, he found the names of his Wisconsin colleagues, Joan Hinton, David Frisch, and Joseph McKibben, all of whom had mysteriously disappeared. This was Ulam's introduction to the Manhattan Project, which was America's wartime effort to create the atomic bomb." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Ulam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislaw_Ulam
slyall 11y ago
Picture of a Library card: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Library_card.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Library_card.jpg The Browne Issue System appears to be what most small libraries used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browne_Issue_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browne_Issue_System
electricblue 11y ago
The studio ghibli movie, Whisper of the Heart has a plot point that revolves around this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_of_the_Heart https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper_of_the_Heart

danso 11y ago

Given that Murakami is 66-years-old, I imagine that the school he went to used paper and pencil/ink to record transactions, and like most school libraries, failed to hire someone properly certified in data retention regulations who would have properly disposed of those records...I'm only being half-facetious here..I think you're wondering if there is some machination resulting from a mass surveillance policy at play here...it could be something much more innocent: papers that are just stashed away in a school's storage room: > The cards were apparently leaked to the paper after a volunteer who once taught at the school came across them while he was sorting out old library books that were to be thrown away. The reason why we don't hear about these kinds of data leakages is because paper usually gets thrown away. Or a building burns down/floods. And also, paper records don't come up in a Google search (which is the extent of "research" for many people today). Why didn't the school back then have a policy of throwing away cards after x number of years? Probably for the same reason why anything was done before computers became so ubiquitous...we constantly underestimate how the power of computation and networking changes the accessibility of information. Back when I graduated from college (and by this time, Google was a major player), no one really complained about printing people's names (i.e. mostly students) in the police blotter. Now, I believe it is a rarity for a school newspaper that publishes online to also publish full names of the suspects, even though no federal/state laws have been passed that would require such discretion. The reason why this practice is now rare is pretty common-sensical to us today, but not so much when Google was still relatively new.

bitJericho 11y ago
Why would anybody want this information destroyed. Protected until the person is long dead sure, but destroyed? A lot can be learned by seeing what experiences someone has had. Would you not want to read what Plato had read? How about Jefferson or Tesla?
- nkrisc 11y ago
  While I tend to agree with you, your position implies we possess an inherent right to that information. Do we inherently have the right to review all your private information, even after death?

cobaltblue 11y ago

It lets the police track down murderers, at least according to the plot of Se7en...