I am in favor of “little free libraries” [0] where books circulate freely, and if they aren’t returned, hopefully are read and not destroyed. They offer plans to build little libraries, and I hope to build some. “Owner” will have to build the supports, though.
Public libraries are nothing more than a group-buy scheme. Everyone throws tax money in the pot and the library buys books and media for everyone to use. Since one can't fit infinite physical objects in a finite space, the collection must be continually pruned and curated. Library systems track circulation figures and unpopular works get weeded.
In my case, weeded books go on the $.50 shelf. If they stay there they go to a different organization for bulk sale, or eventually trashed.
The harsh reality is that there is an almost infinite number of books. The vast majority of which will never be lasting or consequential works. Nobody needs a copy of a 1998 vampire smut thriller, and the world is not worse off for destroying your copy.
Librarians do, however, try to keep notable and important works in the collection regardless of circulation. Some books, but only some, are important enough to stick around forever, and in large part they do.
Libraries only get rid of materials that aren't being used and which take up space for materials that will be used. The goal isn't to preserve knowledge, it's to allow every citizen the same access to knowledge and entertainment as their neighbors. It's to use your population's limited resources to procure the most needed/desired materials for their money. They're optimizing accessibility and foot traffic because that's their purpose.
True archival happens elsewhere
My wife is an elementary school reading teacher and runs a yearly family book night where she takes book donations she gets all year and fills a bunch of portable tables in the gym with kids (and adult) books that are free for the taking. What is left over is taken (by me) to that local company and dumped in huge bins. If you are looking to get rid of a bunch of books I'd also suggest contacting your local schools to see if they take donations.
People frequently take all the good books, all at once, and don't return them.
Someone just emptied out half of it yesterday, and I don't even think they were picky. They just took a whole shelf of books.
It's such a crappy thing to do, and there's nothing that can be done to stop the bad actors.
Where I live actually has the opposite; there are ~6 within a mile, and they're usually completely full. People are always dumping huge collections into them, to where I never even have the chance to give back myself.
I don't know what makes it different here. But it is possible for them to work without safeguards.
The trick is to plump up such a library with a few books no one will take. Cheap romances etc.
I really like devilbunny's idea of a cute little stamp though! It probably wouldn't stop very determined people, but would probably deter a lot.
https://help.archive.org/help/donate-books-app-for-ios-and-a...
Books that have been scanned can be shipped using the below info.
https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donat...
(no affiliation)
They don't all have a home anymore.
Sad, but that's where we're at. It's not book burning in the traditional meaning, wven if that's what is happening.
Do these work for kids' books? Whenever I've seen them geared towards adults, the content is absolute crap.
She’s specifically a children’s book person, so we made sure our library could fit kids books (picture books are big). But many of the kits won’t.
We also live in a walkable college town. There are 5 libraries within 4 blocks of ours. Our neighbors take it upon themselves to clean up and donate. We came back from our Christmas break to someone having installed a motion activated light in the library!
So under the right conditions they work. But you know what works better? Professional librarians, with appropriate resources and facilities. But in all cases, free libraries, public libraries, research libraries, etc. deaccessioning is required so sad for the op, we throw books away.
I had a lot of good books that I finished reading and wouldn't realistically touch again.
Whenever I went to browse for some books I would leave one of them in exchange. Over time, the quality went up because other people started doing the same.
To be honest, I did curate the available books at it as well. Obvious crap (self-published conspiracy theory stuff) was thrown out. At some point you will also have to simple throw out some old ones if they never get taken. Space is limited and a 50 year old book that is collecting dust is not useful to anyone.
Librarians try to “market” books based on what they think the public wants or needs.
They try to assure a variety of books put forward, with a special emphasis on “good for you” books.
Books deed as “not good for you” are likely to be shelved in the back.
in practice, libraries use the Dewey decimal system, but that excluded the many “exhibits” of “good for you” material.
I don’t mean “good for you” in a good or bad way. It’s simply what the librarian believes will be most helpful to the readers.
There are currently some very real and important controversies in public libraries that have no clear solution.
If they cared, they wouldn’t post publicly or the service would not allow that message to embedded.
An enforceable request is called a “demand”, and unless you’re actually capable of enforcing it, it is in fact still just a request.
It would have been polite to honor the request, but they are under no obligation to do so.
Don’t make public posts if you don’t want them publicly displayed.
See here :https://skyview.social/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbsky.app%2Fprofile...
Wait...you're still reading, defying my T&Cs!
The tag to not display on external websites is up to Bluesky to enforce. I mean, you understand those Bluesky chirps or whatever are literally being served by Bluesky, right?
The actual message in the bsky widget could be improved to state that the label is masking the original post and not the reply.
The AI always tells them what they want to hear, and so they trust it. It's not magic.
Is there any empirical evidence that librarians are terrible at their jobs?
The reason is not the supposed fallibility of humans but rather the supposed infallibility of technology. Nontechnical people don't know how the technology works, don't know how the sausage is made, and they mistakenly assume it can't go wrong, just like a calculator can't go wrong.
Also, people are not good at revising their beliefs. A lot depends on what they hear first, and they usually hear from the internet before they hear from an expert, because it's easier and faster to consult the former. It's embarrassing to admit to yourself that you were suckered into believing something false, so the emotional coping mechanism is to get angry at the person who contradicts your beliefs, which preserves your self-respect.
(Yes, I know about the phrases written below every singe one of them. They're probably being taken just as seriously as ToS.)
Yes, this would require better funding, and yes, I regularly donate to my local library every year.
We're going through this at my workplace as well, converting from cubicles to an open floor plan, so workspaces which had decades of accumulated books are being cleared out --- I've rescued as many as I can justify from the recycling bin, but that's a tiny portion, so I'm feeling this sort of decision quite viscerally.
Yeah … no. If you use a citation and you didn’t read the article yourself then it is absolutely intentional deception, and it should be treated as such.
