One day I looked for it, and it was gone. Probably victim to one of those book purges. And I was upset. Not that the book was valuable, and probably went for $1 at a jumble sale. But because it was irreplaceable.

If our own library will not preserve books about our own local history, then who will? How can this source material ever, ever be reconstituted again? How can anybody in charge have thought this was a good idea?

That of course does not help if the book got transferred somewhere else/stolen/lost/destroyed instead of being intentionally purged, so people nevertheless should create and keep copies. With an 1800s book, even publishing the copy would be legal!

Like a distinction between a consumer and professional tool.

The happy-ish ending is, I found a reprint by our local historical society from the 1970's. Without the plates. Took years of visits to local used-book shops and repeated requests to look out for a copy should one show up.

Can anyone tell me if this could have been found in the library of congress?

In our local system, there is one branch that is a designated book repository, and frequently keeps one copy a book that has been culled by all the other branches (and sometimes it is stored offsite, and takes a day or two to retrieve). People generally just have romantic notions about libraries (especially if they don’t really use them, but have strong opinions about what the collections should contain) that aren’t really compatible with serving the local community well.

I'm not actually sure if libraries as described, are doing anything at all for most of us. You see mostly kids and the homeless (or people looking like they are homeless) wandering in there.

1) arguing that public libraries are unneeded because you have enough money to buy your own books (and asserting that 'most of us' can similarly afford our own books, and therefore are not served by public lending libraries)

2) complaining that library collections are 'well-thumbed', while complaining that your favorite book got culled.

And thinking changes - I used to appreciate libraries until they screwed me over, left my interests and needs behind, and became a daycare center. I don't want to read romance novels nor juvenile fiction, regardless of how well-thumbed they are.

Since the books are well-used, that pretty obviously shows that the library is popular and doing a good job at serving some customers.

The concept of the utility of media is important.

If Family Guy was 24/7 every channel, approval ratings and viewership may still stay high.

Is that a proper way to measure utility, or value?

http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/09/library-usage-and-enga...

If we curated public buildings like libraries curate books, we'd all sell our libraries for $1.

My library tends to have a larger non-fiction section than most. Another town houses a huge collection of movies. Yet another hosts a tremendous audiobook collection. A simple online request will deliver any of these materials nearby or I can wander in and browse if I'm looking for something more mainstream.

Perhaps you should consider getting more involved if your library isn't meeting your needs.

I reiterate: most of us are not served. So I choose to quit going. Good for the rest of them; I harbor them no ill will. Yet I believe there are other facilities to house the homeless (I'm sure of it; my church sponsors one) and educate the young. Why warp libraries to serve this role? How can that help them justify their existence? Doing something badly that other public institutions already do?

Unfortunately, every library cannot necessarily afford to be the best university library. That's largely a public policy issue where funding is directed elsewhere and then librarians have to perform triage to keep operating.

I do think there are interesting questions about how the information age could or should change the face of libraries. But I certainly hope it isn't by closing up shop and saying we can just use Amazon or pound sand. Something like the Google book scanning project seemed like a perfect idea for me, particularly if it went after the rare/university library scenario to have a back catalog that would not quit.

What IS an obstacle is having to read a book on a schedule. Having available to read only new-ish books on popular subjects. Getting fined many times the cost of the book if I break the rules. Guilt when I mislay a book (I left a library book on an airplane once; the library never replaced it).

Guilt for losing a book? If you feel that bad just buy them another copy and donate it.

If it doesn't fit your use case that's fine, but you're over exaggerating a bit.

I'm sure - or, I'm hoping - that that particular book you mentioned is archived somewhere under museum conditions.

Another option would be to make a connection with a local academic library (at a college or university in the area)--these often are more willing to store historical documents indefinitely.

Finally, your town or county might have a museum that would be willing to accession an historical document.

The caveat to all these is the same as for the public library: shelf space costs money, and budgets have limits. But sometimes a shift in emphasis is all you need to preserve old things and not worry about new things.

[1]: https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ld/pubs/crew/index.html

EDIT: The other thing worth mentioning here is that well weeded collections are better used than poorly maintained ones. Though there is a subset of customers who want the "lived in" library, most like a continuous cycle of new and interesting content. When they see the same stuff each time they go, they stop being interested. A small public library in a town near mine still have numerous books on the OJ Simpson trial.

If I can't find one, I use my flatbed scanner over the course of a week to make one and throw it up on the internet.

I mean, the US government has warehouses of data with the most inane things about people and then they can't manage to store books before throwing the physical copy out.

Damn.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress

And its listed! https://lccn.loc.gov/03003442

Still not the same in e-book form, as having the original bound pages from 135 years ago in my hands. But good to know.

God sometimes I love the internet. I can only imagine how hard it was to do scientific research before, when the journals were all paper and you had to get the library to search articles for you. Now it takes me a few minutes to access anything. Or most of it at least. We have to work on that.

First off, like the other person said, there are literally 3 scanned copies of this book you just referenced online.[1]

Everyone has already said a lot that needs to be said, but I feel the need to point out, that a big part of being a member in your local libraries 'community served' is participating, which you can do actively at most libraries. My library now has Haskell and Clojure books on the shelves, because I actively participate in the library process. You can do this also, the library you are referencing (if I guessed correctly) has an form where you can set suggest book purchases[2], at my local library unless you are asking for something really really weird they will buy reasonable library user requests. The libraries curation is a community effort, and it won't reflect your needs if you don't make them apparent.

Also, this local library in Iowa you were referencing and most local libraries have an interlibrary loan system for people just like you who need something they don't have there. I constantly use the service at my own local library to find anything I want and have it promptly sent right there to me. You could do this also for any books that you find rare or obscure that you need for a specific purpose. I've often used the service for books that are rare and prohibitively expensive. The Worldcat listings for the book you were looking for are numerous. Even shows the copy at the local historical society you mentioned.

Library workers often check catalogues like Worldcat to see if they have the only copy of something or if something isnt archived previously prior to them throwing it out, according to the listings there are 4 microfilm versions of your book, and several listed OCR scans similar to the archive.org scans I'll assume. It is really weird of you to assume that any library would toss out a book without checking their listing against the global database.

I hope that beats the horse til its quite dead enough to illustrate, that in the modern day there are very few books that can't be found if you understand the capabilities of our library infrastructure, and most of your other points are moot. I personally love it when the local library throws away great books, it gives me the opportunity to buy them, via a little store where they monetize their toss aways to fund the library instead of recycling them, maybe suggest this setup or a library book sale to your local library?

[1] https://archive.org/details/historyofjohnson00iowa [2] https://www.icpl.org/suggest

Think about this the next time you see a ballot measure about cutting taxes.

Why should your particular taste in books be privileged over others?

I argue, that's not most of us. That's kids and bored stay-at-homes.

I understand that libraries are struggling, but they've mutated by simply following a demographic into a hole. Instead of trying to be more relevant to the rest of us.

The issue is books have an inherent physical logistical problem. A city library has a relatively small demographic; the high hit rate books will be relatively easy to stock but getting the long tail right will be nearly impossible. I don't know the right solution to that, but something akin to the netflix DVD distribution model might be a better fit going forward for libraries. Most people can't afford to build a private library like I did.

As for my own justification, I _love_ physical books. I much prefer it to reading on a screen or even epaper. It is a visceral context switch to go "offline" and stare at paper vs any digital system. There are other things that aren't necessarily apparent as well -- press printing a book is an expensive proposition. Therefore, getting the typesetting, copy editing, paper quality etc done right the first time is paramount. I just don't see that on most epublication. Even press printings that are sent for epublishing more often than not look completely haphazard in page layout.

Although I "donate" to Half-Priced Books (sell, but at a pittance), who would then donate what they don't sell to the library, who would then throw the book away, so I have an extra layer of abstraction in my process, and presumably HPB thinks they can sell a few of my books.

I don't doubt that they also throw many in the trash, but given that there's a steady outflow of books back into the community, and that total shelf space is generally increasing, I don't see why it'd be illogical to believe that no books got dumped.

But yeah, after that they go to the recycling bin or dumpster.

My college library had multiple floors. They decided with their grand collective genius, to replace the entire first floor with a knockoff Starbucks "cafe", and tons of Apple computers and tablets (99% of which were just used for Facebook).

They moved the good books upstairs, but any book that didn't make the cut, was literally thrown out. They announced it and you could see a generation gap. I was almost in my 30's. The 18 year olds didn't seem to mind (though some did, I'm not bashing 18 year olds). But anyone my age or older, was appalled. They wouldn't let you buy the books. They wouldn't even let you just take them. They had to be burned. BURNED.

Some of the older students (30+) literally said "Fuck it." and went out of their way to smuggle books out of the library past the theft detectors. They all had their different (strong!) personal reasons for "protecting history" or "not being apart of burning books."

As long as people like that exist--people willing to fight stupid decisions by people at the top--I think we're going to be okay in the long run.

And that reminds me of working for Sam's Club for 5+ years. We threw out so much food that was "out of date" when there were literally homeless people half a mile away. We kept telling management it was wrong but they said "We can't give it away because of liability reasons." (Which I think is bullshit because you can make someone sign away their liability. And Good Samaritan laws exist.) But the real proof that it was bullshit was 10 years later, they now... actually give away day-old food to the local food banks. (Now I'm getting flashbacks of Elaine giving away Muffin stumps to the Foodbank. I should stop now before I derail into another dimension.)