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I have doubts about whether this is true. While libraries are probably optimizing for popularity, I doubt that libraries 100 years ago had very good expert leve

I have doubts about whether this is true. While libraries are probably optimizing for popularity, I doubt that libraries 100 years ago had very good expert level book collections, at least an average library. Reason why it may be more visible today is that due to the internet we have extreme access to information on a scale never before seen, so standards for expert books have risen sharply. Not only you can get the books online, but you can learn about the books online and get them as soon as they are released. Something that wasn't really possible before the digital age.

kwhitefoot 7y ago
I quite deliberately didn't ask for expert, just higher level than 'for dummies'. Something to help people get started, to progress a little. Libraries in the past had a lot of books on science and technology that was actually relevant to the times and places. You could go to a library in a medium sized town and the reference section would contain a lot of works of practical utility. I know they were there because I borrowed them. I didn't borrow them a hundred years ago but some of the books on loudspeaker design, acoustics, electronics, etc., that I referred to in my early teens fifty years ago had been published a couple of decades earlier and were sufficiently good to still be relevant. Let's say between 50 and 80 years ago then. If I look for books of a similar standard in modern libraries they are simply not present. I agree that not every little branch library can have or did have a large collection of such books but the central library serving a town of, say a hundred thousand people should surely have more than a couple of dozen tatty "Excel for Dummies" style books. I understand that libraries will get books on demand but there really is no substitute for actually dipping into a book to discover if it is worth reading and of a level that is comprehensible. If I am to do all this online then what is the library actually for? Perhaps my view is biased because I come from a town that for at least a century made its money from a work force of engineers, technicians, and mechanics, who could read and write and wanted to advance in their crafts.

kwhitefoot 7y ago

I quite deliberately didn't ask for expert, just higher level than 'for dummies'. Something to help people get started, to progress a little. Libraries in the past had a lot of books on science and technology that was actually relevant to the times and places. You could go to a library in a medium sized town and the reference section would contain a lot of works of practical utility. I know they were there because I borrowed them. I didn't borrow them a hundred years ago but some of the books on loudspeaker design, acoustics, electronics, etc., that I referred to in my early teens fifty years ago had been published a couple of decades earlier and were sufficiently good to still be relevant. Let's say between 50 and 80 years ago then. If I look for books of a similar standard in modern libraries they are simply not present. I agree that not every little branch library can have or did have a large collection of such books but the central library serving a town of, say a hundred thousand people should surely have more than a couple of dozen tatty "Excel for Dummies" style books. I understand that libraries will get books on demand but there really is no substitute for actually dipping into a book to discover if it is worth reading and of a level that is comprehensible. If I am to do all this online then what is the library actually for? Perhaps my view is biased because I come from a town that for at least a century made its money from a work force of engineers, technicians, and mechanics, who could read and write and wanted to advance in their crafts.