Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

shelftalkblog.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 159 posts

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#81

Post by markatto »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #76
greyface- wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that if public libraries didn't already exist and were proposed today as a new thing, they'd be found illegal. I agree that they've sort of lost the plot by taking this digital lending stuff seriously.

> People say that if public libraries didn't already exist and were proposed today as a new thing, they'd be found illegal ARPANET was gracefully turned over, for the most part, to the commons, as was GPS. Public libraries are a millenium old as a concept [1], but only half a century (EDIT: millenium) old as a continuous practice [2]. We're not at the tail end of a collective-action halcyon; we're in the centre of it…

A half century? Surely that must be a typo?

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#82

Post by fsckboy »

EnigmaFlare wrote: post #37
dmbche wrote: post #8

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly bec…

Don't forget that printed books also have license fees included in their price. The printer also has the data there and could just print extra copies and sell them at cost+profit but they're not allowed to because copyright. I don't think a latest bestseller should be in a library in the first place. Maybe a couple of years later when the hype has died down if it's still a good book, they can have it for the few peop…

once libraries exist, they want to perpetuate their existence (or jobs, at least) so they chase the popular in search of more library "views" which justifies their existence. I'm not anti library, but this is why they do stuff like lend out power tools.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#83

Post by menacingly »

reporterexchang wrote: post #75

[flagged]

The people who care are the people who upvoted it so it'd make the top 20.

I think usually when someone spots a conflict like this, it's an inconsistency in their idea of the community rather than in the community.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#84

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Dalewyn wrote: post #80
vel0city wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not fully against the idea. Audio feedback has been a part of the experience of driving for so long. A lot of people probably get a feeling of "I'm going fast" based partially from audio queues. Having that audio feedback of the car speeding up rapidly might help make people realize they're accelerating a bit hard or whatever. It can be easy to not realize how fast an EV can accelerate with its instant torque I d…

I love driving Subarus because their boxer engines are noisier than most car engines, likewise diesel cars like a Ford F-350. The auditory feedback is faster and easier to process than visually seeing or physically feeling the car move, I can respond quicker and drive more accurately hence it's safer. It's also easier to notice if something is wrong or strange with the engine. Consequently, I hate driving quiet cars…

I haven’t noticed this in my i4. There is a bit of a whine when you accelerate, but it doesn’t hang around at all. But I bought this car for the soundproofing, so maybe I’m just getting that. I’ve never tried driving a model 3 before.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#85

Post by rochak »

perpil wrote: post #40

The best part of SPL is you get full digital access to the O'Reilly public library, you don't even need to place holds. Most tech books I've ever needed are a search away. https://www.spl.org/books-and-media/books-and-ebooks/oreilly...

This was one of the main reasons I got the library card. It’s so worth it.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#86

Post by odysseus »

vel0city wrote: post #66
koolba wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Forcing libraries to repurchase their entire collection every year should be illegal. We could have public libraries be entirely outside the copyright system. I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. If as a society we have a problem that our libraries are too popular, then that’s probably a good thing. > I would also settle for a loophole that would allow the library to OCR a physical copy t…

> I doubt it’d have a material effect on production of new books. The fact I can just wait to checkout a lot of books I'd otherwise buy digitally massively cuts back on me buying books in the end. I practically don't even subscribe to magazines anymore because it's so easy and free to just check them out on Libby. I just went on a long road trip and had tons of hours of audiobooks digitally delivered for zero cost up…

> zero cost up front

I guess it depends on when you pay your property tax bill (or when your landlord does). I know I pay over $200/year in taxes to the local library, so my family tries to make heavy use of the place.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#87

Post by meristohm »

Libraries are dear to me; they were my first taste of independence away from home. I was in heaven amongst all that potential, and as I got older I'd sometimes check out stacks of books and read a fraction of them. After reading this shelftalkblog I decided to reduce the number of Holds (I mostly Tag books for later, but I also tended to Hold books more out of anticipation than probable follow-through), especially on the popular books, and kept Holds on the books I was most likely to read. Libraries are a public good and I've been taking advantage for too long; I'll scale back my acquisitiveness and think before I click.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#88

Post by Zambyte »

cortesoft wrote: post #15
dmbche wrote: post #8

"What do holds have to do with the cost of digital books? This may seem surprising, but patron holds are the single biggest factor in rising costs. To maintain reasonable wait times, the Library buys additional licenses of a digital title when patrons place more holds on it. That means that when hundreds of patrons place holds on a single New York Times bestseller, the costs of “buying down the holds” can quickly bec…

It is how everything in the digital age works - artificial scarcity. It does seem silly, although I also struggle to think how else we can make the whole thing work.

Another way to make it work is the way Free Software tends to be monetized: by selling labor (real scarcity) instead of licenses (imaginary scarcity).

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#89

Post by AnthonyMouse »

irjustin wrote: post #60

> As a consumer, when you buy an e-book or e-audiobook, it costs about the same or sometimes even less than the print book version. But for libraries, the e-book or e-audiobook version of a title actually costs up to three times or more than the print version. > This is because publishers use a licensing model for selling e-books to libraries. Each copy of a digital book title requires a purchase of a license. While…

Copyright has a thing called the first sale doctrine. You buy a book and now that copy is yours. You can sell it to someone else or lend it out etc., which is what libraries do. They don't have to negotiate with publishers at all, they just go to a book store and buy books.

Publishers claim that ebooks are totally different and have to be licensed instead of purchased because it's the internet. This is, of course, a naked money grab, but then they threaten to sue anyone who tries to call them on it. Most libraries don't have the resources to litigate it. The Internet Archive is currently making the attempt. Give them money or call your legislators and tell them to pass a law making it clear that the first sale doctrine applies to digital.

Re: The Seattle Public Library is reducing maximum digital holds

#90

Post by esrauch »

fsckboy wrote: post #82
EnigmaFlare wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that printed books also have license fees included in their price. The printer also has the data there and could just print extra copies and sell them at cost+profit but they're not allowed to because copyright. I don't think a latest bestseller should be in a library in the first place. Maybe a couple of years later when the hype has died down if it's still a good book, they can have it for the few peop…

once libraries exist, they want to perpetuate their existence (or jobs, at least) so they chase the popular in search of more library "views" which justifies their existence. I'm not anti library, but this is why they do stuff like lend out power tools.

You make it sound nefarious for them to loan power tools somehow, while it seems like it's just an identified community need niche that they can service that no other organization will, the same as offering free tax advice or ESL classes or anything else.
Post reply on HN