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Re:Against Little Free Libraries (2017) by JohnFen on Friday April 19, 2019 @12:25PM (#19700801)
> If you don't want it, chances are very few others want it either.

I don't think this is a good benchmark at all. It's a natural human tendency to think that we each are representative of "most people", but that's very often not actually true.

I prefer to donate unwanted books to the library, thrift shop, or used book store. Those organizations are in a better place to judge what most people want and what they don't.

Re:Against Little Free Libraries (2017) by Tomte on Friday April 19, 2019 @12:35PM (#19700887)
My experience is "if I wanted it, nobody else will".

Lisp in Small Pieces. Sure, here on HN many people would be interested in it. In a smallish town, even though there's a technical branch of a nearby university? Forget about it.

English books? The library isn't interested (for good reason, they have limited shelf-space and very little demand for English books, there are two shelfs of English fiction and that's it).

And even university libraries. I once asked them to buy Compiling with Continuations by Apple. A real classic. No, they won't. Too old, they won't spend money on that. Especially since it's available in several libraries throughout Germany. I am certain they would have zero interest in most of the computer science and programming books on my shelf.

Re:Against Little Free Libraries (2017) by JohnFen on Friday April 19, 2019 @12:42PM (#19700939)
One of the very nice things that libraries (both public and university) can do is to make use of the interlibrary loan system. A surprising number of people don't know this exists.

Through it, you can borrow books from any library that is part of the system, which is almost all of them -- so even very specialized or obscure books that your local library won't carry can be ordered through them for borrowing.

Re:Against Little Free Libraries (2017) by daly on Friday April 19, 2019 @07:49PM (#19703969)
I have Appel's book. I love the fact that I can get very expensive books "second hand". The same information without the high cost. Appel doesn't get paid but I know from my experience with publishers that tech books almost never make money. 3000 copies puts a book in the top 1%.

Carnegie Mellon teaches a compiler course using continuations so I'm not sure what's "old" about it.