Re:Twilight of the Libraries: What Gets Lost When Books Go O...
by JohnFen on Wednesday March 01, 2023 @06:02PM
(#34989563)
> Virtually everwhere has cheap enough mobile data in 2023 to read books with, so internet is not an issue.
The expense wouldn't be in the communications. It would be in replacing the broken devices. And with the program I'm familiar with, there was no communications involved anyway. You get the ebook preloaded on the device.
> I think you may be severly underestimating the cost of maintaining library-sized collections of books, in labor and utilities and maintenance and real estate.
I'm very familiar with these costs in the library system where I live, and I am privy to the figures it was looking at when developing their own ebook program.
I know they vary a lot depending on where you are, though, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that there are areas where it pencils out very differently.
However, as I've said, even if the ebook program saved big money, something important is still lost without physical books.
The expense wouldn't be in the communications. It would be in replacing the broken devices. And with the program I'm familiar with, there was no communications involved anyway. You get the ebook preloaded on the device.
> I think you may be severly underestimating the cost of maintaining library-sized collections of books, in labor and utilities and maintenance and real estate.
I'm very familiar with these costs in the library system where I live, and I am privy to the figures it was looking at when developing their own ebook program.
I know they vary a lot depending on where you are, though, so it wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that there are areas where it pencils out very differently.
However, as I've said, even if the ebook program saved big money, something important is still lost without physical books.