Librarians do hide books. But not as a way of hiding from public but as a way of not throwing them away. Let me explain. Even though libraries are very big still they run out of space and regularly throw out (in India because most don't care) / ( or in Texas sell out books cheaply) and it pains the librarians deeply so they kind of stash books secretly from being thrown away. And if you really show interest in a particular book and request it nicely then the librarian will give it to you and tell you not to tell anyone. Why I know this because it happened to me in my college library in India. I can still after decades remember the love of books on that librarian's face
Almost every library regularly throws out books, and all librarians I know are happy with this. New books arrive regularly, and unless you plan on your library growing unlimited, you need to, in general, a 1 in 1 out policy.
I visited the local library (California foothills) during a “book sale”, and what didn’t sell was left out in boxes, either for cheap or free. What didn’t move was destined for the landfill. I was aghast, but without enough room to take in the strays. Real estate is unforgiving.
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.
We have a small local company that takes bulk book (and cds, dvds, video games, vinyl records) donations. That company has couple of retail used bookstores and also sells both retail and wholesale online but, according to their owner, most of what they get is sold for pulp.
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.
These free book shelves are no substitute for a real library, are they? In my experience, the offering is really limited. It's nice for a random find, but that's all. It's tough that books get burned, but if nobody wants to read them, there's no alternative.
Libraries’ resources are not infinite, therefore most of them are explicitly optimized for circulation, not preservation. If they’re allocating valuable shelf space and staff time on something no one is using, they’re misallocating resources. You know what makes librarians’ hearts warm up? For people to use their spaces, collections, and services.
Little free libraries are fantastic when possible. With that said, assuming the final disposition will be a landfill or pulping via recycling, as a last resort the Internet Archive will accept for scanning and long term cold storage books they have not yet archived. They have an app available to scan UPC codes or OCR ISBNs to dedupe.
I've actually worked in libraries. Public libraries are not historic archives preserving knowledge in perpetuity. You want an academic or research library.
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.
Libraries are overwhelmed in their inability to store all the "good" books. I was cleaning out my book collection of, what I thought are really good books, but I came to the realization there is no space for them. So, they get sold or pulped.
Ah Gizmodo, always the paragon of good journalism. The person has explicitly asked her tweets not be used in external websites, and of course this zombie tabloid doesn't give a damn
A library which was known for having a "last policy" system in place, should not have this difficulty. I would further argue that any library should be willing to accept a copy of any book which they do not have and safely store it until someone wishes to borrow it. I'm still salty that I had to buy a copy of Glenn Reid's _Thinking in PostScript_ when a local library discarded it from their stacks (there are other books which I would check out semi-regularly which have also been discarded which I also need to purchase, but missed seeing on their "discarded" table or at the annual library sale).
Yes, this would require better funding, and yes, I regularly donate to my local library every year.
The "magic" of why AI is trusted over humans is that so many humans are terrible at their jobs that people default to not trusting someone who is telling them something they don't want to hear.
The AI always tells them what they want to hear, and so they trust it. It's not magic.
Quick, someone found a startup called Vibrary and hire vibrarians (I mean, spin up some agentic tablets on wheels) to generate these books on demand for people who request them, working backwards from the halluci-citations. Lawyers will love it! Forgeries were common for thousands of years after all. The last few hundred years of "truth" was a glitch waiting to be patched.
“The citation seems to have been included in many lower quality papers—likely due to laziness and sloppiness rather than an intent to deceive.”
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.
29 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 63.7 ms ] threadI 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.
[0] https://littlefreelibrary.org/
Do these work for kids' books? Whenever I've seen them geared towards adults, the content is absolute crap.
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.
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)
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
The actual message in the bsky widget could be improved to state that the label is masking the original post and not the reply.
Yes, this would require better funding, and yes, I regularly donate to my local library every year.
The AI always tells them what they want to hear, and so they trust it. It's not magic.
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.