3 ms·

We're not talking about old Boy's Life magazines, we're talking about works on local history or niche scientific or technical subjects that were never widely pu

We're not talking about old Boy's Life magazines, we're talking about works on local history or niche scientific or technical subjects that were never widely published, where a few public libraries hold what may be the last remaining copies. There is no reason to destroy these away to make room for Biden or Trump's latest ghostwritten memoir or the latest Grishau novel. At any rate, I do not see any reason to publicly fund the sort of institution you seem to envision. The public can entertain themselves on their own dime.

Retric 4y ago
Clearly they don’t need to remove 100,000 books to have room for Biden or Trump’s latest ghostwritten novel. Politics and recent works should have some reserved space, but they can keep swapping it out military books from a decade ago. Dumping 100k books is what you do when renovating space for computers used by the poor to do research or access basic functions of government that have moved online is exactly the kind of things libraries should be doing. Similarly Inter Library Loans are perfect for outdated scientific, technical manuals, or other extremely niche books. If one person in an entire state might check it out per decade then there’s little reason to clog hundreds of libraries with copies. The inter library loan system is a very effective cost saving measure that also improves people’s access to information. It’s not like people have stopped publishing local history books. Libraries need room for new local books just as they need room for new everything else.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  These books are being wiped out from the entire ILL system, not just your local library.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Not all 100k books mentioned. But there’s nuance here. Keeping every single printing of Shakespeare’s plays in the ILL system has minimal value. Similarly the point of local libraries isn’t to archive all knowledge some stuff is going to be trashed.
    - Amezarak 4y ago
      Once again nobody is complaining they can’t get every edition of Shakespeare. The issue is they can’t get any copy of say, Plutarch outside of ILL, and complete copies of such things as the Golden Bough are unavailable even there, and the self-published book high schoolers wrote 50 years ago that documented local history that was not available anywhere else was destroyed. You are describing how mostly collections should work. They don’t work that way. They work in about the worst way you can possibly imagine. They are in fact junking valuable books for ghostwritten dreck that will itself be thrown away soon.
      - Retric 4y ago
        > every copy of Shakespeare Sorry, I assumed that was your complaint about the Shakespeare book printed in the 1700’s. There are multiple orders of magnitude less ghostwritten dreck than self-published books. In publishing the long tail is vast. A library can easily have every book that sold 50,000+ copies from the last 10 years without wasting much space. Simply as a practical measure there just aren’t that many “popular” books. I am not saying that the tail end of books with 100 copies has no value, but you can’t keep everything for all time. If nobody has checked a book out in a year it’s only so valuable to the local community. I find nothing wrong with ILL for Plutarch simply on a cost basis. Shipping books around isn’t free, but neither is shelf space. The point where the probability of someone wanting a book is significantly less than the cost of ILL is a real benefit.

Retric 4y ago

Clearly they don’t need to remove 100,000 books to have room for Biden or Trump’s latest ghostwritten novel. Politics and recent works should have some reserved space, but they can keep swapping it out military books from a decade ago. Dumping 100k books is what you do when renovating space for computers used by the poor to do research or access basic functions of government that have moved online is exactly the kind of things libraries should be doing. Similarly Inter Library Loans are perfect for outdated scientific, technical manuals, or other extremely niche books. If one person in an entire state might check it out per decade then there’s little reason to clog hundreds of libraries with copies. The inter library loan system is a very effective cost saving measure that also improves people’s access to information. It’s not like people have stopped publishing local history books. Libraries need room for new local books just as they need room for new everything else.

Amezarak 4y ago
These books are being wiped out from the entire ILL system, not just your local library.
- Retric 4y ago
  Not all 100k books mentioned. But there’s nuance here. Keeping every single printing of Shakespeare’s plays in the ILL system has minimal value. Similarly the point of local libraries isn’t to archive all knowledge some stuff is going to be trashed.
  - Amezarak 4y ago
    Once again nobody is complaining they can’t get every edition of Shakespeare. The issue is they can’t get any copy of say, Plutarch outside of ILL, and complete copies of such things as the Golden Bough are unavailable even there, and the self-published book high schoolers wrote 50 years ago that documented local history that was not available anywhere else was destroyed. You are describing how mostly collections should work. They don’t work that way. They work in about the worst way you can possibly imagine. They are in fact junking valuable books for ghostwritten dreck that will itself be thrown away soon.
    - Retric 4y ago
      > every copy of Shakespeare Sorry, I assumed that was your complaint about the Shakespeare book printed in the 1700’s. There are multiple orders of magnitude less ghostwritten dreck than self-published books. In publishing the long tail is vast. A library can easily have every book that sold 50,000+ copies from the last 10 years without wasting much space. Simply as a practical measure there just aren’t that many “popular” books. I am not saying that the tail end of books with 100 copies has no value, but you can’t keep everything for all time. If nobody has checked a book out in a year it’s only so valuable to the local community. I find nothing wrong with ILL for Plutarch simply on a cost basis. Shipping books around isn’t free, but neither is shelf space. The point where the probability of someone wanting a book is significantly less than the cost of ILL is a real benefit.