3 ms·

Man if only people had access to a large online free global library.

by jamesholden 3y ago

throwup238 3y ago
You could call it the “genesis library” or GenLib for short
- xnyan 3y ago
  Wow, libraries general! We can call it libgen for short.
  - reedjosh 3y ago
    I love you guys!
  - tivert 3y ago
    Wouldn't help. You might as well say people could use Wikipedia and Wikibooks. A big reason people go to libraries like the British Library is for collections of rare books an manuscripts (https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-lose-a-library/ https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-lose-a-library/), which you're not going to find on some pirate site that scraped the (relatively) low-hanging fruit of digitally-distributed academic papers and ebooks. You might as well say "Man if only people would spend the billions of dollars to digitize every scrap of archival paper in the world, and put it online for free."
    - xnyan 3y ago
      >A big reason people go to libraries like the British Library is for collections of rare books an manuscripts I love rare books and have donated to my library specifically to restore rare books in need. The vast majority of patrons would never notice them missing or care if they did. >Wouldn't help...You might as well say... So, a huge collection of books available for free won't help library patrons, and the main reason why because I can't also use it to view Chekhov's handwritten notebooks or the Leningrad codex? Ok.
      - tivert 3y ago
        > So, a huge collection of books available for free won't help library patrons, and the main reason why because I can't also use it to view Chekhov's handwritten notebooks or the Leningrad codex? Ok. You're moving the goalposts. I'm sure the UK already as quite a few everyday lending libraries that would fill that need while the British Library is offline. Library Genesis could perhaps fill in for one of those if it was shut down because of hacking, but few people would care.
- pstuart 3y ago
  TIL. Thank you!
criddell 3y ago
An unfortunate number of people would only be able to access that global library using the computers at their local library.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

Man if only people had access to a large online free global library.

throwup238 3y ago

You could call it the “genesis library” or GenLib for short

xnyan 3y ago
Wow, libraries general! We can call it libgen for short.
- reedjosh 3y ago
  I love you guys!
- tivert 3y ago
  Wouldn't help. You might as well say people could use Wikipedia and Wikibooks. A big reason people go to libraries like the British Library is for collections of rare books an manuscripts (https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-lose-a-library/ https://www.publicbooks.org/how-to-lose-a-library/), which you're not going to find on some pirate site that scraped the (relatively) low-hanging fruit of digitally-distributed academic papers and ebooks. You might as well say "Man if only people would spend the billions of dollars to digitize every scrap of archival paper in the world, and put it online for free."
  - xnyan 3y ago
    >A big reason people go to libraries like the British Library is for collections of rare books an manuscripts I love rare books and have donated to my library specifically to restore rare books in need. The vast majority of patrons would never notice them missing or care if they did. >Wouldn't help...You might as well say... So, a huge collection of books available for free won't help library patrons, and the main reason why because I can't also use it to view Chekhov's handwritten notebooks or the Leningrad codex? Ok.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > So, a huge collection of books available for free won't help library patrons, and the main reason why because I can't also use it to view Chekhov's handwritten notebooks or the Leningrad codex? Ok. You're moving the goalposts. I'm sure the UK already as quite a few everyday lending libraries that would fill that need while the British Library is offline. Library Genesis could perhaps fill in for one of those if it was shut down because of hacking, but few people would care.
pstuart 3y ago
TIL. Thank you!

criddell 3y ago

An unfortunate number of people would only be able to access that global library using the computers at their local library.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]