This is super interesting.<p>It just occurs to me that it could be really fun to work as a technologist for a library. In the light of this article, it sounds like there's room to automate and enhance some stuff: scrape literary review websites for up and coming authors, apply machine learning to the library's records to find out if there are underlying trends in borrowing that can inform acquisitions, events, etc. And of course you could write cool visualizations to highlight the different metrics.<p>As a kid, the library was my second home - I'd go there after school almost everyday, and Saturdays from opening to closing. The library was a short 5 minute walk from my parents' house, which in retrospect is probably the thing that influenced my intellectual upbringing the most. (programming came right after, in my early teenage years) It remains with me to this day: I have a deep love for books, and dream of the day when I can accommodate a basement with rows and rows of bookshelves.<p>I kind of want to work for a library now!
Funny, I saw this myself years ago with a med school library, where the problem was more severe and with like every paper resource they had.<p>But it was interesting problem. Unlike normal libraries, they are so digital they run into a new problem: they have such little need for any books, they might as well throw all of them away. The medical education industry is so much more onboard with digital publishing and references because hospitals and schools pay top dollar, and often doctors will need research materials super fast when things are serious and they need to perform analysis quick. Digital publishing is not even a question of if, it is a long past when.<p>So long story aside, they had to be really secretive throwing away books. Someone once discovered these old, useless (no other schools want them, thus) in the garbage. Some alumni or concerned students found them, causing outrage.<p>Solution, this whole library spent years without an avenue for destruction of the books, because old grads and others would not tolerate the idea. How could we not need the books? Year later, dozens of racks exist with books and magazines not only never checked out, but not even touched for decades collecting significant dust.
I am almost* entirely of the opinion that no book should ever be thrown away. Digitize if unwanted, but don't throw it away. I know that might require some jiggering of the IP laws, but knowledge has huge value and it really bums me out when books of knowledge are dumped. Even if the knowledge is antique, then the information about how the knowledge was perceived and transmitted becomes valuable to later generations.<p>* There are some <i>really</i> bad books out there.
> Partly this had been done because the new library, while boasting great architectural flourishes and lots of architectural space, did not have enough shelf space.<p>I find this pretty sad. Seems the architect forgot what a library was for.
I think it would be fabulous that on deciding to get rid of a book the library archived it into their 'digital' collection by scanning it. Access could still be available at the library or on the library web site, but the book would not be taking up volume space in the 'physical' collection. They could then add a 'd' notation to the card catalog entry.
There is another way. Scan the books that are to be tossed, and provide access to them electronically at the library.<p>The scanning costs can be spread out by each public library sharing the scanned copies amongst themselves.
There is a library that still has Watson & Crick's paper in their Nature archive. It's in the stacks. Despite my repeated urging that they place it in special collections. The same library has a Galileo, but no one knew, in fact they laughed at me, until I pulled the card and made the special collections "senior librarian" pull it. Something about databases and excessive purchasing (leading to wanton crewing) seems to have removed many a librarian's sense of ownership.
I make extensive use of e-books and audio books. I especially like audio books because they make my commute bearable. But some books, which may be great stories in the dead-tree edition, are downright aggravating in the recycled-electrons edition. I'm currently listening to a story that keeps jumping back and forth between the present and the recent past, and whatever visual clues the author might have left for that, the reader is failing to convey.<p>eBooks have issues of their own. Most of these seem to be due to the interface, though, rather than to the format itself. 3M Cloud, for example, seems dedicated to making it as difficult as possible for me to be able to pick up my eBook and continue reading where I left off. My current book drops me at the beginning of Chapter 2 every time I open in. It has a "bookmark" capability, by which I mean I can <i>create</i> a bookmark--I just can't ever <i>find</i> it later, much less return to the spot in the book that it supposedly marks. Frustrating. But I can download and start reading a book in the middle of the night, far from home, and when my checkout period expires, the local copy automatically disappears without my having to return to the library or pay a fine for failure to return the book.
"Many books that existed in no other copies, many books arguably with historic value, had been simply thrown away and buried in landfill."<p>I understand the need to get rid of unwanted books from a library; books are ming in, so naturally some books have to go out. What I find despicable is <i>destroying</i> those books rather than trying to find ways to people who would use them.
I donated about 20 programming books to the local library after seeing that the selection was decades old and almost non-existent. It was very frustrating to find out that they sold all of them in order to buy a few popular titles.
> A weed is something you don’t want growing in your garden—more formally, “a plant that interferes with management objectives for a given area of land at a given point in time.”<p>My own definition of a weed is "a plant that thrives without assistance." For example, grass refuses to grow on my lawn without intensive assistance, but cannot be eradicated from places I don't want it to grow.
Is anyone aware of anything that would corroborate this quote? I've never heard any such controversy, nor could I find anything in a quick search...<p>"Weeding, even in the garden, has become a remarkably controversial subject."
My library sells books every few years. The last time I went to the sale, I scored one of the Feynman lecture series books for under a buck. When I handed it to the librarian with my money, she said "oh my", realizing that this was really not something they should be chucking away. If not for the fact that they charge annoying fines, I would have let them off the hook, but I said "well, you folks put it on the table for sale" and walked away with a fine prize.