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A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

zmescience.com

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Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#71

Post by kqr »

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #45
baron816 wrote: post #21

If you leave your wallet on the ground in a park in SF, the chances you’ll get it back are probably pretty high. If you leave it in your locked car, your car will probably get broken into. Thieves are strategic. They’re not looking around in parks for lost wallets, nor are they going to libraries hoping they can lift a bunch of unattended books.

Career thieves wouldn't scour a park for wallets, no, but many people are opportunistic thieves. If they happen upon money with no one in sight, they'll just take it, without thinking it's a big deal. The case in the article matches the second model, not the first. Hundreds of people realised they were in a library with no staff. Two-hundred books were taken out, presumably without anyone having to log their names. T…

> Two-hundred books were taken out, presumably without anyone having to log their names.

The article states that every book taken out was returned. I see two alternatives:

1. The staff conducted a full inventory a couple of weeks after the incident and confirmed that every book is still there. (By the way, at what rate are books smuggled out even during regular opening hours?)

2. The books that were taken out were borrowed against a library card using some sort of self-checkout station.

I find option 2 much more likely, which meant the names were logged.

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#72

Post by waveBidder »

blt wrote: post #62
langsoul-com wrote: post #53

Makes sense, the date was a holiday, everyone would be going out. People who'd go to a library during such a time are less likely to want to cause trouble. Not to mention the value of a books aren't very high. You could find a free copy of every library book online.

Not true, I routinely find books in academic research that have never been digitized

usually not in your run of the mill public library though

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#73

Post by kqr »

lofaszvanitt wrote: post #66

I long been waiting for the day to use any store anytime I want. I like to do things late night, like going to the groceries or the market, but it's hard to find any shop that is open around 3AM. Never understood, that after strong authentication, why can't I enter a shop, buy whatever I want, then leave.

I know there are stores like this in Sweden. Haven't been to one myself, but an in-law of mine apparently found it very convenient during her University years.

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#74

Post by PrimeMcFly »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #2

If you read the news every day, you might be forgiven for thinking that most people are naturally evil. In reality the vast majority are actually good, or trend towards acting in a positive manner at the very least. I've seen two sorts of IRL applications rely on this: Self checkout at stores, and sites like wikipedia and openstreetmap. Or just western society in general, if you think about it. Most of the time we tr…

> In reality the vast majority are actually good, or trend towards acting in a positive manner at the very least.

I'd say it's about 50/50.

A significant portion of people don't seem to be good, and need some religious book to tell them how to live their lives so they can approximate being good to the best of their ability.

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#75

Post by Emma_Goldman »

kqr wrote: post #71
Emma_Goldman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Career thieves wouldn't scour a park for wallets, no, but many people are opportunistic thieves. If they happen upon money with no one in sight, they'll just take it, without thinking it's a big deal. The case in the article matches the second model, not the first. Hundreds of people realised they were in a library with no staff. Two-hundred books were taken out, presumably without anyone having to log their names. T…

> Two-hundred books were taken out, presumably without anyone having to log their names. The article states that every book taken out was returned. I see two alternatives: 1. The staff conducted a full inventory a couple of weeks after the incident and confirmed that every book is still there. (By the way, at what rate are books smuggled out even during regular opening hours?) 2. The books that were taken out were bo…

Perfectly possible, but if there were no staff, that means that the denizens of Gothenburg were conscientious enough to police themselves. They checked out their books even though they probably could have just walked out the front door with them.

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#76

Post by jampekka »

At least in Finland it wouldn't make much difference if the library is open or not. Even when there's staff, it's up to you to scan the books you take out and the staff doesn't control this at all.

Many similar situations, e.g. self-scanning items in-store and bagging them, where stealing carries essentially zero risk of getting caught, but stealing doesn't happen much.

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#78

Post by vichle »

amatecha wrote: post #30
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #2

If you read the news every day, you might be forgiven for thinking that most people are naturally evil. In reality the vast majority are actually good, or trend towards acting in a positive manner at the very least. I've seen two sorts of IRL applications rely on this: Self checkout at stores, and sites like wikipedia and openstreetmap. Or just western society in general, if you think about it. Most of the time we tr…

I don't tend to frame anyone as good or evil. My judgement is more about whether their actions harm others or do not. In my experience, the majority of people generally don't want to cause harm to others, or don't knowingly intend to. They often do because they are ignorant of how harmful their actions can be (IMO the most common cause of people harming each other), or they may be desperate (as someone in an adjacent…

Most "evil" acts are in fact just selfish. To truly classify something as evil, there needs to be an intent to cause harm.

I'd also argue that desperation is a subset of selfishness.

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#79

Post by albert180 »

Moldoteck wrote: post #69
albert180 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Library's are a public service not a business

Yes, you provide that service as b4 during normal hours and charge a small fee during unusual hours to create a minimal barrier when there's no supervisor, aka charge a fee to provide the 'extra' public service)

Why should you do that? I guess people who have only time at late hours are not the most fortunate in life (e.g. Single Mom's who have to work full time and care for their kid). If they want to educate themselves during late hours I'm completely fine if that costs a little bit more taxes to get them education

Re: A door at a Swedish library was accidentally left open

#80

Post by Ekaros »

langsoul-com wrote: post #53

Makes sense, the date was a holiday, everyone would be going out. People who'd go to a library during such a time are less likely to want to cause trouble. Not to mention the value of a books aren't very high. You could find a free copy of every library book online.

Average library has plenty of books that have not been digitized. On other hand those are not also particularly rare either. So other libraries are very likely to have copies or at least the national one is some countries have one.

More rare or old books tend not to be stored on shelves.

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