3 ms·

Getting rid of books is part of running a library, I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing is part of running a museum or similar organization. That said,

by tdeck 3y ago

Getting rid of books is part of running a library, I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thing is part of running a museum or similar organization. That said, there are so many collectors out there I feel it would be better to at least try to find a home, even if it means selling them. It's easy for me to say that because I don't have to actually do it.

rnewme 3y ago
There's difference between archive and a library. Also, why didn't they process in the first place then? And for it being "hard to pass over" - it wasn't hard for them to have him drive 70 miles and pack all on his budget??
tptacek 3y ago
I mean, OK, sure, but if you're the museum that discards this material as a matter of course, well, now you know why Jason Scott is going to spend the next several years shredding your reputation online, right? It's not the final battle between good and evil. He's clear up front what the issue is. You can care what he has to say or not. The next museum or library will, I assume, be more careful.
- eschaton 3y ago
  And you can also care whether what he says is actually accurate.
  - Aeolun 3y ago
    Honestly, if I trust someone, and they tell me something as ambiguous as “they told me they threw them out”, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for doubt. That’s not a very complex story that someone can misremember.
skissane 3y ago
> Getting rid of books is part of running a library It depends on what kind of library we are talking about. Local public libraries, K-12 school libraries – they throw out books all the time. They have quite limited space, so they can't keep books which are no longer relevant to their target audience. National libraries, research libraries of leading universities – many of them rarely or never throw books out. I remember, when I was a university student, finding IBM 1400 manuals sitting on the shelves in the stacks. They are probably still sitting there. I believe they turned their last 1400 off in the 1970s. I remember borrowing a book, and according to the due date stamp inside its cover, the last person to borrow it before me, had done so 40 years prior. You could tell the books that hadn't been borrowed in a long time, because they still had punch cards in them, from back when the library had used punch cards to track book borrowing. If you actually borrowed such a book, they'd remove the punched card and discard it as part of the borrowing process. I bet if I went back today (20+ years later), there would still be books with punched cards in them.

by tdeck 3y ago

rnewme 3y ago

There's difference between archive and a library. Also, why didn't they process in the first place then? And for it being "hard to pass over" - it wasn't hard for them to have him drive 70 miles and pack all on his budget??

tptacek 3y ago

I mean, OK, sure, but if you're the museum that discards this material as a matter of course, well, now you know why Jason Scott is going to spend the next several years shredding your reputation online, right? It's not the final battle between good and evil. He's clear up front what the issue is. You can care what he has to say or not. The next museum or library will, I assume, be more careful.

eschaton 3y ago
And you can also care whether what he says is actually accurate.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  Honestly, if I trust someone, and they tell me something as ambiguous as “they told me they threw them out”, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for doubt. That’s not a very complex story that someone can misremember.

skissane 3y ago

> Getting rid of books is part of running a library It depends on what kind of library we are talking about. Local public libraries, K-12 school libraries – they throw out books all the time. They have quite limited space, so they can't keep books which are no longer relevant to their target audience. National libraries, research libraries of leading universities – many of them rarely or never throw books out. I remember, when I was a university student, finding IBM 1400 manuals sitting on the shelves in the stacks. They are probably still sitting there. I believe they turned their last 1400 off in the 1970s. I remember borrowing a book, and according to the due date stamp inside its cover, the last person to borrow it before me, had done so 40 years prior. You could tell the books that hadn't been borrowed in a long time, because they still had punch cards in them, from back when the library had used punch cards to track book borrowing. If you actually borrowed such a book, they'd remove the punched card and discard it as part of the borrowing process. I bet if I went back today (20+ years later), there would still be books with punched cards in them.