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They missed one thing that's mostly irrelevant to their point, so I can't trust anything they say, even when they back it up with expert commentary!

vel0city 3y ago
How can I trust they even bothered to actually track down real experts when they didn't bother figuring out basic facts? And they act like Overdrive was free while Libby is charging, but Overdrive wasn't free before. There's no actual breakdown of the total costs of these two platforms, just some vague trust us its more expensive. Which I can't really trust a blog post of rumors without hard facts when the things I can check as hard facts are downright wrong!
- shkkmo 3y ago
  Perhaps if you re-read the article you'd catch more of the facts. Overdrive and Libby are two apps from the same company. That company, Overdrive, has a monopoly and makes money charging libraries money to provide a service to that library's patrons for free.
  - vel0city 3y ago
    Your comment isn't sharing anything I didn't already know. The author is asking me to trust them about their research they did about some pricing change related to moving towards the Libby platform. They mention new subscriptions for libraries without actually sharing any of the actual pricing. Overdrive is going away, so whatever they were paying for Overdrive will go to $0. These numbers are entirely made up and not in line with whatever they were paying, just showing an example of how this whole argument of a new subscription doesn't necessarily mean things are radically more expensive. So say Overdrive cost the library $100. Now there's this new platform Libby, which while in development and not feature-complete with Overdrive was just tacked on free or whatever. Now the Overdrive platform is being deprecated and will cease soon, so they announce the pricing structures for Libby, $75. Oh no, what used to be $100 is now $175, what an increase! Oh wait, we forgot, Overdrive is going away, so in the end the costs are actually only $75. When the author can't track down the full story that Libby is available as a website it really reduces the trust I have that they actually figured out what the pricing models are as Overdrive goes away and Libby replaces it. I question if the author and their sources were even fully aware that Overdrive is fully going away soon, as that was only announced a few months ago. They never once actually shared "This was what the costs were with Overdrive, here is what the costs will be when its just Libby." Maybe the overall costs are going up! I don't know either way. I definitely don't have deep insights on exactly how the pricing models worked in the past nor in the future as I have never worked for a library. It wouldn't surprise me that costs would go up in a period with somewhat high inflation. It would almost be news if the price didn't go up. In the end though, I can't really trust someone who didn't bother researching the first basic and easily verifiable facts they bring up in their writing. Once again, if someone writes a post talking about specifics about NASA but starts off talking about how the moon landing was faked, would you trust the rest of their "trust me" writing?
    - shkkmo 3y ago
      What you've done it taken a small, irrelevant detail and used it to ignore the entire rest of the article, including interviews with librarians who talk about how much worse the new request system is. You don't engage at all with the deeper underlying issue: we have a monopoly, owned by a notoriously unscrupulous private equity firm that holds control over the future of libraries. Do you see how stupid it is to nitpick the article for not having access to pricing data, when the real concern here should be that the pricing is not publicly available? The author freely admits they are not a professional journalist and what you are doing is gatekeeping that seems to serve no other purpose than to suppress a story that should be getting far more attention than it is. If you're concerned that other facts in this essay are off, (and they may well be, this is a solo essayist, not a professional journalist with a fact checker) then give them and hand, check other facts and send the author the information they missed.
      - vel0city 3y ago
        > taken a small, irrelevant detail A small detail that takes like 30 seconds to confirm if true or not that takes up like a quarter of their whole article. > what you are doing is gatekeeping About a quarter of their article is about this basic fact that takes almost zero effort to confirm or deny. Its not some deep hidden detail. I don't understand why you feel they need to hire a fact checker to figure out that libbyapp.com exists. I didn't realize expecting people to do more research than "ask random people on Mastodon" is gatekeeping journalism. Which this is all this essay is, someone shared their experiences misunderstanding how the new app works and then quoted a few random, unconfirmed sources off Mastodon. And when you actually go look at their sources, it really begins to call in to question other premises of the story. The first person the author is quoting later says "I 'm not in the pipeline of ordering [from the old system]...or examining requests that were there" and other statements suggesting they never really directly used the library's side to Overdrive so they didn't really know what the old system was like. Hard to say the new system is worse than the old when you never really used the old one! And then the librarian who wrote "this change is a real downgrade", their reason for why its a downgrade didn't make this blog post. Why not? Maybe because the reason why they felt that way was "For one, there is no way for libraries to see which patron clicked Notify Me for which title." Good! I don't necessarily want librarians to know "John Smith wants a copy of whatever", all they should know is that someone wants that book. Then that whole idea that a library needs a subscription to see what was requested is also another misunderstanding. That Advantage program is only for libraries participating in a consortia, as the consortia is a shared pool of books. The Advantage program allows libraries participating in a consortia to have their own private Patron's Only section as well. But the author makes it sound like the only way for a library to know what books are being requested is by the Advantage program, which by their own sources isn't true! > If you're concerned that other facts in this essay are off...then give them and hand, check other facts and send the author the information they missed. I mean they pretty much just need to go to Overdrive's website and actually read the Mastodon toots (or whatever they're called) next to the ones they quoted and a number of their points will be shown to be incorrect. I'm not doing any more digging than what they already did and things that are very easily public information and I'm finding tons of glaring holes in their blog post. > Do you see how stupid it is to nitpick the article for not having access to pricing data, when the real concern here should be that the pricing is not publicly available? If their real concern was that we should have access to pricing data they should have actually included such a concept in their post, because they pretty much never do other than state libraries need to buy an Advantage subscription, which isn't true. Practically all of their post was about how they had to install the Libby app instead of using a website, that it took them a bit to understand how the "Notify Me" tag works despite there being help articles about it and the platform explaining it in the app, and then massively taking people on Mastodon out of context and leaving out key elements of their statements of if the new system is better or worse than the old and why.

vel0city 3y ago

How can I trust they even bothered to actually track down real experts when they didn't bother figuring out basic facts? And they act like Overdrive was free while Libby is charging, but Overdrive wasn't free before. There's no actual breakdown of the total costs of these two platforms, just some vague trust us its more expensive. Which I can't really trust a blog post of rumors without hard facts when the things I can check as hard facts are downright wrong!

shkkmo 3y ago
Perhaps if you re-read the article you'd catch more of the facts. Overdrive and Libby are two apps from the same company. That company, Overdrive, has a monopoly and makes money charging libraries money to provide a service to that library's patrons for free.
- vel0city 3y ago
  Your comment isn't sharing anything I didn't already know. The author is asking me to trust them about their research they did about some pricing change related to moving towards the Libby platform. They mention new subscriptions for libraries without actually sharing any of the actual pricing. Overdrive is going away, so whatever they were paying for Overdrive will go to $0. These numbers are entirely made up and not in line with whatever they were paying, just showing an example of how this whole argument of a new subscription doesn't necessarily mean things are radically more expensive. So say Overdrive cost the library $100. Now there's this new platform Libby, which while in development and not feature-complete with Overdrive was just tacked on free or whatever. Now the Overdrive platform is being deprecated and will cease soon, so they announce the pricing structures for Libby, $75. Oh no, what used to be $100 is now $175, what an increase! Oh wait, we forgot, Overdrive is going away, so in the end the costs are actually only $75. When the author can't track down the full story that Libby is available as a website it really reduces the trust I have that they actually figured out what the pricing models are as Overdrive goes away and Libby replaces it. I question if the author and their sources were even fully aware that Overdrive is fully going away soon, as that was only announced a few months ago. They never once actually shared "This was what the costs were with Overdrive, here is what the costs will be when its just Libby." Maybe the overall costs are going up! I don't know either way. I definitely don't have deep insights on exactly how the pricing models worked in the past nor in the future as I have never worked for a library. It wouldn't surprise me that costs would go up in a period with somewhat high inflation. It would almost be news if the price didn't go up. In the end though, I can't really trust someone who didn't bother researching the first basic and easily verifiable facts they bring up in their writing. Once again, if someone writes a post talking about specifics about NASA but starts off talking about how the moon landing was faked, would you trust the rest of their "trust me" writing?
  - shkkmo 3y ago
    What you've done it taken a small, irrelevant detail and used it to ignore the entire rest of the article, including interviews with librarians who talk about how much worse the new request system is. You don't engage at all with the deeper underlying issue: we have a monopoly, owned by a notoriously unscrupulous private equity firm that holds control over the future of libraries. Do you see how stupid it is to nitpick the article for not having access to pricing data, when the real concern here should be that the pricing is not publicly available? The author freely admits they are not a professional journalist and what you are doing is gatekeeping that seems to serve no other purpose than to suppress a story that should be getting far more attention than it is. If you're concerned that other facts in this essay are off, (and they may well be, this is a solo essayist, not a professional journalist with a fact checker) then give them and hand, check other facts and send the author the information they missed.
    - vel0city 3y ago
      > taken a small, irrelevant detail A small detail that takes like 30 seconds to confirm if true or not that takes up like a quarter of their whole article. > what you are doing is gatekeeping About a quarter of their article is about this basic fact that takes almost zero effort to confirm or deny. Its not some deep hidden detail. I don't understand why you feel they need to hire a fact checker to figure out that libbyapp.com exists. I didn't realize expecting people to do more research than "ask random people on Mastodon" is gatekeeping journalism. Which this is all this essay is, someone shared their experiences misunderstanding how the new app works and then quoted a few random, unconfirmed sources off Mastodon. And when you actually go look at their sources, it really begins to call in to question other premises of the story. The first person the author is quoting later says "I 'm not in the pipeline of ordering [from the old system]...or examining requests that were there" and other statements suggesting they never really directly used the library's side to Overdrive so they didn't really know what the old system was like. Hard to say the new system is worse than the old when you never really used the old one! And then the librarian who wrote "this change is a real downgrade", their reason for why its a downgrade didn't make this blog post. Why not? Maybe because the reason why they felt that way was "For one, there is no way for libraries to see which patron clicked Notify Me for which title." Good! I don't necessarily want librarians to know "John Smith wants a copy of whatever", all they should know is that someone wants that book. Then that whole idea that a library needs a subscription to see what was requested is also another misunderstanding. That Advantage program is only for libraries participating in a consortia, as the consortia is a shared pool of books. The Advantage program allows libraries participating in a consortia to have their own private Patron's Only section as well. But the author makes it sound like the only way for a library to know what books are being requested is by the Advantage program, which by their own sources isn't true! > If you're concerned that other facts in this essay are off...then give them and hand, check other facts and send the author the information they missed. I mean they pretty much just need to go to Overdrive's website and actually read the Mastodon toots (or whatever they're called) next to the ones they quoted and a number of their points will be shown to be incorrect. I'm not doing any more digging than what they already did and things that are very easily public information and I'm finding tons of glaring holes in their blog post. > Do you see how stupid it is to nitpick the article for not having access to pricing data, when the real concern here should be that the pricing is not publicly available? If their real concern was that we should have access to pricing data they should have actually included such a concept in their post, because they pretty much never do other than state libraries need to buy an Advantage subscription, which isn't true. Practically all of their post was about how they had to install the Libby app instead of using a website, that it took them a bit to understand how the "Notify Me" tag works despite there being help articles about it and the platform explaining it in the app, and then massively taking people on Mastodon out of context and leaving out key elements of their statements of if the new system is better or worse than the old and why.