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That hasn't been my experience. I recently checked out the 2018 David Constantine translation of The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht, for instance. Do you ha

That hasn't been my experience. I recently checked out the 2018 David Constantine translation of The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht, for instance. Do you have a particular library system, and some examples of books you have been unable to get? And can you say more about what you mean about libraries making money by destroying books? I've never heard of this, and am not finding much googling. But I see a lot of value in providing books that the public wants to read, I am confused by your statement that there's no worth in letting people check out John Grisham from the public library. And it's obviously not like John Grisham's income is being hurt either. For at least couple generations public libraries have seen it as included in their mission to provide the public with the recreational reading people actually want, so at any rate this thing you're complaining about isn't new. I agree libraries should also be able to provide more than just the most popular books. Which requires they get enough budget to so. Ironically, if they refused to offer books people actually wanted to read, but only offered books some kind of experts thought were to be recommended on, well, whatever grounds you are suggesting should gatekeep what goes in a library -- they would find it even harder to get budgets. People don't tend to support raising the budget of institutions that refuse to give them what they actually want. But the reason to provide popular books isn't just some kind of manipulation of the public -- it's part of the whole mission of public libraries, providing books people actually want to read. And of course, providing for recreational reading, this has been the mission of public libraries for a long time, nothing new about it.

Amezarak 4y ago
Librarians deliberately keep book-destruction quiet, because they know the public would be outraged. Most people do not want to write about it because especially once you're "inside", you're the sort of person that holds librarians and librarians in extremely high regard. You have to be inside the system. Nevertheless, articles do come out every few years. https://www.npr.org/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-really-destroy-books https://www.npr.org/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-lib... EDIT: I cannot reply because I have posted too much but yes, if you read the link, it mentions they are paid for doing this.
- ghaff 4y ago
  What else do you do? Every year, a room in our town hall is crammed to the gills with book/etc. donations and I'm sure some books from the library itself that people cart away for $10/shopping bag. I'm sure a ton of books never sell and presumably get pulped. At home, I'm in the same boat. I don't get in as many new physical books as I used to because of Kindle, but if something new comes in, something else has to go out.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    The longer a book has been around, the longer you should probably keep it. Maybe your one copy Thucydides has been checked out 1 time in the past 20 years, and your five copies of $SLIGHTLY_OUTDATED_POP_LIT have been checked out 200 times in the past 20 years (but very little in the past two.) Junk the extra copies of the latter in your branch. In a few more years, junk all but one copy in your library system. In a few more years, junk all but one copy in your ILL network. Soon it will be safe to junk that too, unless you're the Library of Congress. Instead, they junk Thucydides. Unfortunately, this requires much more curation and work from librarians, which is why it will not be done.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Honestly I'm generally less concerned about the real classics, leaving aside in-copyright translations. With 70,000 books in Project Gutenberg alone, that would be 10 books for each town resident just for a single copy of each book. Personally, I've even gotten rid a lot of my classics from school that were on my shelves at home. I can just download them if I want them.
    - jrochkind1 4y ago
      I feel like what you describe is in fact best practices as practiced by libraries. What makes you think this is not what libraries actually do? Do you have specific examples from a specific library of them doing something very different from what you describe? If you aren't going to go by circulation numbers/popularity, then the main obvious other thing to go on is expert opinion. Which I think is what you are encouraging, experts to decide that John Grisham isn't actually "good for people" or something, and Thucydides is. One issue with expert opinion is it's necessarily subjective, any individual person, such as yourself, might disagree with any given decision made by experts, and it's just a matter of opinion whether something was worth keeping why. Perhaps the experts got rid of the thing you think should have been kept, and it has upset you. While no choices are never going to upset anyone, good practice probably combines expert opinion on enduring value, with popularity via circulation stats. And, as you mention, also tries to collaborate with neighboring libraries to divide up the burden of keeping the "last" copy in the region of things deemed worth keeping a last copy of. Here's one library guide to "weeding" (getting rid of books, also called "deaccessioning"), for anyone interested in how libraries and librarians talk about best practices. Although this one is 15 years old. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/pubs/crew/crewmethod08.pdf https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/l...

Amezarak 4y ago

Librarians deliberately keep book-destruction quiet, because they know the public would be outraged. Most people do not want to write about it because especially once you're "inside", you're the sort of person that holds librarians and librarians in extremely high regard. You have to be inside the system. Nevertheless, articles do come out every few years. https://www.npr.org/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-libraries-really-destroy-books https://www.npr.org/2011/10/12/141265066/hard-choices-do-lib... EDIT: I cannot reply because I have posted too much but yes, if you read the link, it mentions they are paid for doing this.

ghaff 4y ago
What else do you do? Every year, a room in our town hall is crammed to the gills with book/etc. donations and I'm sure some books from the library itself that people cart away for $10/shopping bag. I'm sure a ton of books never sell and presumably get pulped. At home, I'm in the same boat. I don't get in as many new physical books as I used to because of Kindle, but if something new comes in, something else has to go out.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  The longer a book has been around, the longer you should probably keep it. Maybe your one copy Thucydides has been checked out 1 time in the past 20 years, and your five copies of $SLIGHTLY_OUTDATED_POP_LIT have been checked out 200 times in the past 20 years (but very little in the past two.) Junk the extra copies of the latter in your branch. In a few more years, junk all but one copy in your library system. In a few more years, junk all but one copy in your ILL network. Soon it will be safe to junk that too, unless you're the Library of Congress. Instead, they junk Thucydides. Unfortunately, this requires much more curation and work from librarians, which is why it will not be done.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Honestly I'm generally less concerned about the real classics, leaving aside in-copyright translations. With 70,000 books in Project Gutenberg alone, that would be 10 books for each town resident just for a single copy of each book. Personally, I've even gotten rid a lot of my classics from school that were on my shelves at home. I can just download them if I want them.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    I feel like what you describe is in fact best practices as practiced by libraries. What makes you think this is not what libraries actually do? Do you have specific examples from a specific library of them doing something very different from what you describe? If you aren't going to go by circulation numbers/popularity, then the main obvious other thing to go on is expert opinion. Which I think is what you are encouraging, experts to decide that John Grisham isn't actually "good for people" or something, and Thucydides is. One issue with expert opinion is it's necessarily subjective, any individual person, such as yourself, might disagree with any given decision made by experts, and it's just a matter of opinion whether something was worth keeping why. Perhaps the experts got rid of the thing you think should have been kept, and it has upset you. While no choices are never going to upset anyone, good practice probably combines expert opinion on enduring value, with popularity via circulation stats. And, as you mention, also tries to collaborate with neighboring libraries to divide up the burden of keeping the "last" copy in the region of things deemed worth keeping a last copy of. Here's one library guide to "weeding" (getting rid of books, also called "deaccessioning"), for anyone interested in how libraries and librarians talk about best practices. Although this one is 15 years old. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/ld/pubs/crew/crewmethod08.pdf https://www.tsl.texas.gov/sites/default/files/public/tslac/l...