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

70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

bookstr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 81 posts

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#61

Post by pseudohadamard »

WalterBright wrote: post #16
lava_pidgeon wrote: post #2

I'm not sure about other countries. There is a culture refuse to throw away books in Germany. People would put on the streets for free (I found two interesting books with this method).

> People would put on the streets for free In the US people put "Little Free Libraries" in their yards. They're all over the place in the Seattle area.

I've seen them in Scandinavian countries as well, glass-fronted cases in front of houses or on trees. There's a few here (not Scandinavia) too, sometimes old refridgerators because they're pretty well sealed against the elements.

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#62

Post by pseudohadamard »

kwanbix wrote: post #48
blywi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the answer is in the article text "all meticulously sectioned by publisher". Book sizes differ somewhat between publishers, but each publisher tends to only print books in a few standard sizes. For the paperback editions this is even more reduced, it usually looks to me like all paperbacks from one publisher are the same size.

I never undertood why publishers couldn't agree in 5 different sizes or so.

They're German publishers, they probably all adhere strictly to DIN sizing.

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#64

Post by pseudohadamard »

WorldMaker wrote: post #28
vunderba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the first thing I noticed - a lot of those book covers look shockingly uniform. Maybe there’s more standardization in localized German publishers?

The article noted that at least some of the sections had been organized by publisher, so that could increase the uniformity within those sections. Similarly, sorting and measuring all the books by height and weight may have been a part of the project of planning the shelves in the first place. It does look like an attempt at efficient packing, which I suppose you would need to keep that many books in that house and r…

Particularly if you get series like the 6.022e23 identically-bound Lesezirkel books or the dtv or rororo ones in standard Taschenbuch format, you'd get a wall of identical volumes.

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#65

Post by pseudohadamard »

WalterGR wrote: post #13

I’m not familiar with the “modern car” unit of weight. “With an assumed average weight of 300 to 400 grams per book, the weight of around 15 modern cars is currently stored in Schröder’s detached house.” 350 grams x 70,000 books = 24,500 kg. About 54,000 lbs. Can a ‘typical’ house bear that weight??

They also need to say which country's car it is. In France or Italy it'll be an efficient 900-1,000kg Renault or Fiat. In Germany a 1,800kg BMW. In the US, a Sherman tank, https://www.jalopnik.com/youre-not-wrong-american-trucks-and....

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#66

Post by Circlebit »

HackerNewt-doms wrote: post #57

In Germany, there was a trend of setting up public bookcases in town squares where passers-by could drop off or take books. But as things go, after a while, they slowly started to go out of fashion. Since then, kebab shops and barbershops have become a more common sight in the cityscape (Stadtbild).

They are still common and popular in many places and I have found cool stuff there often.

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#67

Post by bananzamba »

lava_pidgeon wrote: post #2

I'm not sure about other countries. There is a culture refuse to throw away books in Germany. People would put on the streets for free (I found two interesting books with this method).

I found some nice books in German paper recycling containers. Including a nice old etymology dictionary that I treasured

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#68

Post by bombcar »

Circlebit wrote: post #66
HackerNewt-doms wrote: post #57

In Germany, there was a trend of setting up public bookcases in town squares where passers-by could drop off or take books. But as things go, after a while, they slowly started to go out of fashion. Since then, kebab shops and barbershops have become a more common sight in the cityscape (Stadtbild).

They are still common and popular in many places and I have found cool stuff there often.

In the US they're often called "Little Free Libraries" and you can join groups around them: https://littlefreelibrary.org

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#69

Post by genve »

Holy cow, I just clicked the link and saw the photo. My first thought isn’t about literature—it’s about structural engineering. Look at those sloped ceilings! Having thousands of books literally hanging over your head while you work... that’s a lot of trust in those wooden beams. One small earthquake and you’re buried in a 35-ton paper tomb. It looks amazing, but man, it’s also terrifying.

Re: 70k Books Found in Hidden Library in This Germany Home (2023)

#70

Post by zvr »

Circlebit wrote: post #66
HackerNewt-doms wrote: post #57

In Germany, there was a trend of setting up public bookcases in town squares where passers-by could drop off or take books. But as things go, after a while, they slowly started to go out of fashion. Since then, kebab shops and barbershops have become a more common sight in the cityscape (Stadtbild).

They are still common and popular in many places and I have found cool stuff there often.

I also regularly visit the 3-4 that are within 10 minutes walking distance from my place. It's fun to see that they have slowly become more "specialized"; for example, English books typically appear in only one of them.
Post reply on HN