This is a nice idea but a lot of the OSM tiles show as blocked due to lack of a Referer.
same here.
Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
31–40 of 41 posts
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#32Most of the books in these community libraries are really crappy. I would assume that people: a. Toss out books at home they don't like and bring them to these libraries b. Take interesting books from the libraries, and leave the bad ones Any ideas on how to improve that?
If you see a library that's full, find the worst book, walk a ways, and throw it away.
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#33Most of the books in these community libraries are really crappy. I would assume that people: a. Toss out books at home they don't like and bring them to these libraries b. Take interesting books from the libraries, and leave the bad ones Any ideas on how to improve that?
I built a little free library a couple years ago. There are definitely people who drop their old crappy books. A good little free librarian treats it like a garden, pruning the weeds and letting the good stuff grow. I also like to seed it occasionally with some of my old favorites that I want someone else to enjoy. It tends to sort of perpetuate itself. People put less junk in there if there is already quality stuff.
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#34The first thing I noticed: do people like wet books? The way a lot of those libraries are designed, all the books are going to be ruined at the first rainstorm.
The Library of Congress doesn't keep a copy of everything. It doesn't even try. I was shocked to learn this, as a child growing up I had been told the Library of Congress kept a copy of everything.
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could digitize them if you think you (or your family/friends/etc.) would read them: https://www.diybookscanner.org/ (If any are public domain, consider scanning them and uploading to archive.org!)
That’s no good to me. It’s the physical volumes I need to get rid of. I couldn’t give a fiddlers about what’s in them
If you hate them, that's all the more reason to do a destructive scan on them and upload them somewhere. If you don't care about the book, you can make a beautiful copy, and somebody wants to read it. Even if it's just to research religious fanatics around the Boulder, CO area who were in a business conflict with someone from the Jones family. They might be interesting because of who published them, because one has a list in an appendix of the businesses in downtown BFE from 1982, or because the grandson of the author became president of Chile.
I want to say that you don't know what books are worth reading until after at least 1000 years, but actually all books are worth reading after 1000 years. They become tsukumogami, somehow old and wise even if they started dumb. The list of the garbage from the 16th and 17th century I've spent all day reading that is exactly their equivalent of the self-published AI slop novel is embarrassingly long.
If there are already good pirated copies of it, cut the spines anyway and you can use the pages for fill when you're packing things. Lots of O'Reilly in my life went that way.
edit: the problem is having access to a indy print shop that will scan them for you (it only takes a few minutes, but the machine is huge and expensive.) Most of them are closed down and have been replaced with chains. I was spoiled for a while working with one.
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#36Thanks to the author, I now have a whole lot of destinations to walk around town. I will take some photos of every library and upload to the app soon too!
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#37The first thing I noticed: do people like wet books? The way a lot of those libraries are designed, all the books are going to be ruined at the first rainstorm. The Library of Congress doesn't keep a copy of everything. It doesn't even try. I was shocked to learn this, as a child growing up I had been told the Library of Congress kept a copy of everything.
The ones in Canada usually have sloped roofs to block rain. It's enough.
Indoor ones obviously don't need it.
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#38Thanks to the author, I now have a whole lot of destinations to walk around town. I will take some photos of every library and upload to the app soon too!
You can also contribute to OpenStreetMap instead - they have bookcases too
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#39I have lots of old books that aren’t very good. That I can’t give away. What do I do with them? I have this strange taboo feeling about destroying books, even bad ones!
They're worthless, sadly. You can make a free library-type thing, but nobody wants them. The best use is to glue the pages together (one set of about 20 with the cover, one set of 20 with the back cover, and then the rest). Put it on a bench/vice and use a jigsaw to cut open the center portion, and then glue the back section to the hole you now have, and now you have a book you can hide something in. Or just burn the…
I had considered this. Up cycling them as eco bricks but that’s nearly as destructive as burning. Life would be so much easier if I had no qualms.
Re: Book Corners: Community map of neighborhood book exchange spots
#40I have lots of old books that aren’t very good. That I can’t give away. What do I do with them? I have this strange taboo feeling about destroying books, even bad ones!
You can try to find out or estimate how many copies there were. If there are tens of thousands, it may make you feel less bad about tossing them. If people want them, they can find them and it's not necessarily your responsibility. For many books the world's need for them really diminished in relation to what has been mass-printed at one time: popular fiction like airport books, self-help type etc. Second hand bookst…
> If there are tens of thousands, it may make you feel less bad about tossing them.
That’s a great point.
It doesn’t eliminate the problem but it helps break it up a bit, which is definitely helpful.