25 ms·

(Some) libraries are to books what archive.org is to the internet. I also don't think you realize how lacking the the digitization and public availability of o

(Some) libraries are to books what archive.org is to the internet. I also don't think you realize how lacking the the digitization and public availability of older publications and books in academia is. You can count yourself lucky if there's at least a barely legible and badly scanned PDF. Usually your only choice is hitting your universities' library. This is also true for a lot of general literature that is just old enough to still be copyrighted but already too old to still be sold anywhere. There are thousands upon thousands of such books which you will be hard pressed to find anywhere but in a library. An example I recently encountered would be most works by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon. Out of his 80 published works maybe 10-20 are still easily accessible and purchasable somewhere. Soon he would be a forgotten author, and stupidly long copyright terms would have played a role in that. Thank god we have libraries preserving at least some of our history.

calibas 6y ago
Most of the local history here requires either talking to someone or looking in a physical book. I was surprised to realize how much isn't available online.
- novok 6y ago
  Even books that might of been scanned by google books but are unavailable to look at?
  - calibas 6y ago
    They're just not in Google Books and not available online period. Try finding a copy of "Castella, California : the last one hundred years 1900-2000". It's a real book, but if you're limited to the Internet you might not even realize it exists. Even better, try finding any version of Joaquin Miller's The Battle of Castle Crags.
ksaj 6y ago
One thing I love about the libraries at least in Toronto, is that many of them have private collections, and some of them are entirely one subject or genre. I have a deep interest in magic and mentalism, and found a library here that has books on the subject that are so old they're not even in modern English (or German as is the case for some of the books they have). Luckily the illustrations are detailed and verbose. Also in Toronto we have the Reference Library which is a gold mine, and probably is even more archive.org-like than most libraries. I honed my Assembly Language skills there in the 90's, and did enormous amounts of research on Artificial Life and that sort of thing. They have some of the best stacks, so you have to use the CueCat or whatever they call it to summon up all the good stuff they dare not leave on the shelves. Nowadays a lot of material is available on the Internet. Yet most books are so very much better than a current blog or online "tutorial." Even the older books. So there is that. PS: I always buy the e-books that I like. Paper copies if they're available, since I prefer them. You can tell a great book by how dog-eared it gets over time. You don't get that metric with ebooks.

calibas 6y ago

Most of the local history here requires either talking to someone or looking in a physical book. I was surprised to realize how much isn't available online.

novok 6y ago
Even books that might of been scanned by google books but are unavailable to look at?
- calibas 6y ago
  They're just not in Google Books and not available online period. Try finding a copy of "Castella, California : the last one hundred years 1900-2000". It's a real book, but if you're limited to the Internet you might not even realize it exists. Even better, try finding any version of Joaquin Miller's The Battle of Castle Crags.

ksaj 6y ago

One thing I love about the libraries at least in Toronto, is that many of them have private collections, and some of them are entirely one subject or genre. I have a deep interest in magic and mentalism, and found a library here that has books on the subject that are so old they're not even in modern English (or German as is the case for some of the books they have). Luckily the illustrations are detailed and verbose. Also in Toronto we have the Reference Library which is a gold mine, and probably is even more archive.org-like than most libraries. I honed my Assembly Language skills there in the 90's, and did enormous amounts of research on Artificial Life and that sort of thing. They have some of the best stacks, so you have to use the CueCat or whatever they call it to summon up all the good stuff they dare not leave on the shelves. Nowadays a lot of material is available on the Internet. Yet most books are so very much better than a current blog or online "tutorial." Even the older books. So there is that. PS: I always buy the e-books that I like. Paper copies if they're available, since I prefer them. You can tell a great book by how dog-eared it gets over time. You don't get that metric with ebooks.