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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

#111

Post by asdff »

andrewla wrote: post #21
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…

I have even experienced this in my personal life -- I like in NYC and when I moved here I had to get rid of a ton of books. The ones that I could not bring myself to part with ended up in boxes in my parent's basement where they remain to this day. Many of my fondest memories growing up was browsing the bookshelves in my childhood home, discovering books that I remember to this day. Now I read almost exclusively on m…

Never too late to go back and start up a physical library.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#112

Post by asdff »

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/

Reversed is so crazy.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#113

Post by bastawhiz »

WillAdams wrote: post #22
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,…

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 moving books on demand is fixed: a van with one book and a van with fifty books costs the same to drive between branches.

Most colleges and universities have agreements with each other for exactly these systems and they're actively used. My partner considered completing his U Chicago PhD from San Francisco by way of the Stanford library.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#114

Post by bastawhiz »

reaperducer wrote: post #83
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,…

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 I've done ILL in three major cities. The shortest time it took to get the books requested was 14 days. Some have taken over 60.

You can request a book from another library that's already checked out in some cases, which means you have to wait for it to be returned first. In my experience, a week is usually the norm.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#115

Post by bastawhiz »

NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #63
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,…

>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. These libraries do not coordinate the deaccessioning. If it ever gets down to 2 copies, there's a non-zero chance that they will deaccession their copies simultaneously, and then there are none.…

> Did they ever check first to make sure some other library had a copy? Did they warn that other library "we're getting rid of ours, please don't get rid of yours"?

Yes. They have a shared catalog. All of this is coordinated. It's literally the whole point of being a librarian.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#116

Post by TFNA »

sailfast wrote: post #33

What’s wrong with e-books? Highlighting is awesome. Accessible and searchable! I have a number of paper books myself but it seems odd to need to have them all on a shelf outside of the need to show your identity to folks that walk into the room with you, or to have some form of art “on the wall” to help one think.

> What’s wrong with e-books?

This article is about academic libraries. Research in many fields requires keeping multiple books open in front of you at the same time, because new research typically starts by synthesizing disparate previous research. That’s a workflow that most people find much less efficient with ebooks. Your segue into personal book ownership and impressing people is also not very relevant to the article.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#117

Post by Tangurena2 »

crote wrote: post #71
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,…

A big problem with accessibility is that interlibrary loan is awful for browsing. I rarely go to a library to loan a specific work - I go there to find a work. This means going through dozens of potentially-relevant titles, taking them off the shelf, quickly browsing through them, and taking the one or two best ones home. This entire workflow becomes impossible if the book isn't readily available. A book hidden in a…

Whenever I am attending university, or live near one, I try to walk every aisle and every shelf at least once per year. Maybe things are much better these days, but all too often I would find books that were not in the card catalog (or cataloged incorrectly). The "adjacent shelf" method of research was one secret that grad students tended to learn.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#118

Post by tokai »

I worked at an university library that was being moved to a new, and smaller, location. We did a lot of weeding. I threw thousands of books in the dumpster. We had to be covert in our work so the student body wouldn't act up. Much like the author here.

No library will ever just throw books out randomly. Most works are available from many dozen of other libraries and not even close to lost if thrown out. Inter library loan insures that they can always be gotten should a user need them. Shelve space is not infinite, and books not being used out blocks space for works that are in use.

Tools like worldcat and familiarity with the fields the library's collection cover, helps avoid weeding rare and unique works. Librarians are well aware of their library's forte. A single library isn't the world repository of knowledge. The network of collaboration between all national and academic libraries is.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#119

Post by nitwit005 »

kristjansson wrote: post #17

> the shelves were being cleared to make space—not for more books but for space itself. ... The new library has four floors. Two of them feature books Despite the frenzy of building at most American universities, the library is forced to serve dual purpose as space for study and collaboration as well as repository of printed material. The collection is not managed on merely its own merits, but subordinated to the oth…

Yep, also meeting rooms for various clubs. My university genuinely had a wine tasting club that met in the library.

Re: A dumpster arrived behind my university's library

#120

Post by phendrenad2 »

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,…

I think librarians tend to become creatures-that-shovel-books. Librarians come to think of books as this sort of continuum, an ooze that they just pipe from one stack to another. Housing the books and following the proper procedures becomes the important thing, not the words on the pages.

But that's completely the wrong attitude. Books are NOT all created equal. A schlocky romance novel is not equivalent to a book by Kierkegaard, or Vonnegut, or Plath, despite the fact that they are just a bunch of leaves between bindings with an ISBN stamped on the back.

So it's telling when the top comment on a story about professors fighting to save books from being carelessly thrown away is that there exists a basement full of romance novels. The narrator is faulty in this story.

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