How libraries decide which books to keep (2014)

Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by andi999 on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @05:17AM (#25999223)

I find in fundamental sciences, sometime newer editions of book are not better, especially if you have a book where the first edition was like 100 years ago, then it build up a reputation (because it was good), next edition were getting better and better. Then the person who made these new editions retires/dies and somebody incompetent takes over, tries to give the book a 'new' organisation, and it turns into a big mess.

I remember when I asked a prof for a book recommendation, and he warmly recommended a title and author. Got the book from the library and it was a mess. Years later I saw an older edition (which the prof studied as a student) and it was beautiful. If you just flip through the new edition one the flaws are not obvious immediately.

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Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by mhh__ on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @05:45AM (#25999423)

The difference in quality between a (inflation adjusted) £99 book from 1962 and a today is depressingly bad. Print quality, that is, most old textbooks I've read are rubbish pedagogically.

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Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by ajfjrbfbf on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @10:39AM (#26002214)

Luckily we now have Library Genesis, which didn't exist in 1962.

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Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by villasv on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @07:39AM (#26013094)

They really are rubbish pedagogically. I remember me trying to grasp physics from Mir (the Soviet publisher) but the book was basically a compendium of hard as hell exercises with barely any explanation.

Had a much better time with Tipler’s modern physics book later on.

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Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by andi999 on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:08PM (#26015885)

Well is it about time, or culture? I mean Bergmann Schaefer was always good, wasnt it. Anyhow I am curious what book exactly from Mir did you read? Also one of my co-students was from Russia (he was from a gifted program) and what a bit shocked me that for them to learn mechanics the study Landau-Lifshitz vol 1 at age 14.

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Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by villasv on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @04:17PM (#26019229)

Both, I guess, because they're correlated. Certainly culture plays a big part. The USSR days were intense for science and nationalism. I guess those books were just another reflex of the space race mentality that stuck for a while.

I don't remember which Mir books I've read exactly, but I'm almost sure two of them were Irodov's Fundamental Laws of Mechanics and Saveliev's General Course. Maybe I was just too immature, but that thing was way too heavy for a standard high-schooler.

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Re:How libraries decide which books to keep (2014) by andi999 on Thursday February 04, 2021 @02:30AM (#26023396)

I just had a look. Savelievs looks more like a course for university.

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