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A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

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Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#161

Post by goldfishgold »

bastawhiz wrote: post #10

My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…

Do you keep track of what was deaccessioned and compare that against ILL requests? Otherwise how would you know, unless you happen to remember all the books that have been disposed of?

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#162

Post by goldfishgold »

SMV279438 wrote: post #12

I was at UVU recently with some time to spare, looking for old bound magazines just for some browsing. Decades ago there were rows and rows of bookshelves, with these bound magazines, going back to the 1880's. It was so interesting to look through them. But now there was nothing, zippo, left of that. Just huge areas with completely empty shelves. Apparently it happened fairly recently, and the bookshelves hadn't been…

Utah Valley University?

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#163

Post by andrewla »

andrewla wrote: post #84
ForOldHack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dijkstra? What is your go-to Dijkstra paper? His papers are like The short stories of Philip K Dick. Everything seems fine and straight forward, until you step into another world. You are indeed privileged. What you have gained by reading them, is more than an education: It would be a journey, to read them, and your commentary. I picked up a science fiction book, in a recycle bin, that for the most part belonged ther…

I think what I appreciate most are the smaller notes, that probably don't represent a publishable result in any way. There was one where he describes a problem that he had seen in an elementary school -- find a fraction between a/b and c/d. Everyone he talked to had the same basic answer; find a common denominator, find the midpoint, and if necessary, double the denominator. So 2/3 and 3/4 -> 8/12 and 9/12 -> 16/24 &…

Dug it up when I got home: https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/ewd12xx/EWD1297.PDF

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#164

Post by WillAdams »

bastawhiz wrote: post #113
WillAdams wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works if all the libraries coordinate to determine which one will hold the last copy, and if the expense of moving such books around on request does not exceed that of storage. Given the number of books I've been unable to find when I wanted them save in the Library of Congress (which won't loan, necessitating a trip to DC, or finding and purchasing my own copy), and the number of times my ILL requests have…

> That only works if all the libraries coordinate to determine which one will hold the last copy, and if the expense of moving such books around on request does not exceed that of storage. This is actually a mostly-solved problem in many cases. Many librarians have great SQL skills (or at least the ones I've met) and can query this easily. Most regional library systems have a centralized catalog. And the cost of movi…

You need to move those skills and agreements down to the smaller regional level.

There have been numerous cases where I checked out a book, and later went to refer to it again and it was not just no longer in the stacks, but not available in the system.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#165

Post by ungreased0675 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #31
bastawhiz wrote: post #10

My first thought is how accessible these books are. If a book hasn't been checked out in years, and there's another library in the interlibrary loan network that has a copy, there's no practical reason to keep another copy. If you can request a book and have it arrive in a few days, that's not an issue in any real sense, especially for books that nobody is checking out in the first place. I used to work in a library,…

Our basement was stuffed to the gills with romance novels that nobody was reading anymore, mysteries published decades ago, and kids books that probably related to kids from a previous generation more. This is hardly comparable to difficult philosophy books as mentioned in the article, though. To my mind, the poin of libraries is to house and make accessible difficult or challenging books that might not necessarily b…

It’s very simple: Because people go to the library looking for those books. If the library consistently doesn’t have the books people went there for, they stop going. If people stop going to the library, it eventually gets shut down.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#166

Post by ungreased0675 »

varun_ch wrote: post #35
ciscoriordan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stayed at an Airbnb that had fake books on the shelves! I looked them up and they aren't even especially cheap. But they probably get stolen a lot less.

I found out recently that you can just buy books. There's businesses who sell books. Not any specific book, but just books to fill shelves to decorate rooms. You can even buy colour coordinated books. https://booksbythefoot.com/

While this is a fantastic service for interior decorators, I find the concept of using books as just decorations grotesque.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#167

Post by pfdietz »

etempleton wrote: post #158
themaninthedark wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't have surplus sales? I know the universe I went to did. Price it all at a penny each.

Even libraries that go to the trouble of doing this throw away probably a thousand books for every one they can sell.

That depends on the structure and scale of the sale. Our local library sells most of the books at the biannual sales. Granted, many of those sell for very little; prices decline over several weeks so the things discarded wouldn't sell even for pennies.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#168

Post by LaGrange »

ceayo wrote: post #56
LaGrange wrote: post #11

Some people truly love paper books more than having people read books. It’s one of the more seemingly paradoxical ways anti-intellectualism manifests.

Without books, what books are they going to read?

Other paper books. Or the same books but electronic or reprinted when the demand is higher. Just not the exact same pieces of highly fetishized dead wood.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#169

Post by clickety_clack »

gammalost wrote: post #18

At the risk of sounding a bit pretentious: I think the relationship a lot of people have with books can best be described as commodity fetisishm. People see some value in the physical books themselves. They are sacred, discarding them becomes a crime against knowledge. Sure I get it, the nazis burned books; but these libraries are in no way comparable to that

It’s either that, or an extreme conservatism where nothing must deviate from how it used to be.
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