[HN Gopher] The open-stack library: a futuristic technology from...
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The open-stack library: a futuristic technology from the 18th
century
Author : arbesman
Score : 38 points
Date : 2023-11-08 12:52 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (resobscura.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (resobscura.substack.com)
| karaterobot wrote:
| Libraries are certainly struggling to adapt to a changing world,
| and quarantine provided a _lot_ of institutions cover to make
| radical--not always beneficial--changes to how they operate. I
| suspect that digital lending will ultimately lead to library
| budgets shrinking, and getting rid of physical books will
| ultimately lead to library branches closing. If, in the end, we
| 're left with just another streaming platform, but in a public-
| private partnership, we'll certainly have lost something
| important to me personally. I think we'll also have lost another
| piece of culture that performed a function we didn't fully
| understand the importance of when we tossed it out.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| I hate this timeline :(
| WillAdams wrote:
| "Libraries will get you through times of no money better than
| money will get you through times of no libraries." -Anne
| Herbert
| bane wrote:
| The library systems that I've seen that appear to be doing well
| seem to have latched more onto the "third place" aspects of
| being a library rather than offering books. One new library in
| a neighboring county offers a mini makerspace, recording
| studio, a couple internet access labs, open wifi, meeting
| rooms, quiet reading and study areas, plentiful weekly
| activities, community events, clubs, and talks. Of course they
| offer the traditional books, magazines, music, movies, etc. and
| also have a well supplied e-media offering over the internet.
| It's also in the middle of a local mixed-use shopping district
| rather than off in some hinterland and is _bustling_. In the
| afternoons on school days the children 's and dedicated teen
| areas are crammed with kids studying. During the workday is
| full of adults who are "working from home" and want a change of
| scenery but don't want to pay "coffee rent" at the local
| Starbucks. It's a great quiet co-working space because you can
| also walk across the street for lunch, then back to the library
| to finish the day out.
|
| The libraries one county over though, are still basically
| books, magazines, and reading tables, and while still decently
| attended, do not provide nearly the public benefit that their
| neighboring system seems dedicated to offering. The hubbub of
| people using the public service just isn't there.
| ghaff wrote:
| My town has a nice little small-town library. I know they
| have talks from time to time and there are definitely people
| there. But honestly? Yes, there's inter-library load but,
| unless I were doing some local historical research I doubt I
| would go to the library to look for something in particular.
| And if I just want something/anything interesting-looking to
| read? I have piles of unread or read years ago books at home
| to say nothing of the Internet or the ability to buy a Kindle
| book or download a public domain work in seconds.
| creer wrote:
| Large, rich library here - and noticeably fewer books. Some
| categories still well stocked, like surprisingly the teens
| section! How does that happen? Teens are reading paper more
| than the general audience? One thing is that like you say,
| (some) teens are present - while the general audience may
| have fewer reasons to show up.
| OldOneEye wrote:
| I feel like this is a common sentiment shared among those that
| started their life with physical books being the only way to
| read a book (and I count myself among those).
|
| As years have passed, I found physical books are great for
| gifting, but terrible to keep. I never read any given book more
| than once, twice at most. Having those books be occupying space
| in my home, having to be managed across moves, and then just
| forgotten, perhaps only to be remembered with some nostalgia
| when you linger your gaze idly on them from time to time...I
| find that wasteful.
|
| I've been very happy reading from an ebook device for almost
| two decades now. I don't think the tactile sensation of a book
| to be that great anyway. It's much more convenient, and, above
| all, I don't have the burden of having to manage all that
| space. The same way that I was burdened by my father's passing
| and having to manage his books and comics (of course, this was
| only a minor annoyance, but not something I would have ever
| wished to do, because of course...I couldn't bring myself to
| just throw it all out to the recycling boxes, and gifting them
| all to some place is no that easy now that almost no one is
| taking in physical books anymore). All of that...for an
| ephemeral experience. A passing distraction. Much like a movie.
|
| Now...how does this relates to the library disappearing? I
| think libraries as they're designed don't provide that much
| value when you can get almost all what you want in a single
| kindle. Indeed, physical books make no sense to me, specially
| having to store them in a public building, whose space could be
| put to better use for the community.
|
| The concept of accessing the literature freely should never
| disappear, I'm not advocating for that. But I would prefer that
| this would be done by lending or allowing the use of e-books
| rather than physical books. Or even just pdf files to be read
| with the user's own devices. Perhaps a self-deleting pdf if
| some kind of lending wants to be implemented?
|
| Instead, the physical space currently occupied by books could
| be used to promote communal activities, between kids and
| between adults. There are public buildings like that in
| Barcelona, that can be used by cultural neighborhood
| associations that allow the people of the city to bond in much
| the same way that ancient communal places like the church would
| have performed. So, for example, food distribution citizen
| cooperatives, or role playing/board game groups, singing and
| dancing groups, theater play associations or courses,
| historical recreation societies...the sky's the limit!
|
| All of the previous activities provide more integration and
| community than what a traditional library could ever provide.
| Reading being mostly a personal experience, even taking into
| account potential reading clubs.
|
| And what I've come to believe is that it is much more important
| to enabling opportunities and social integration, to provide
| shared spaces rather than trying to cover that need by giving
| free access to self-learning or leisure resources. I would
| prefer my public money to be used towards communal integration,
| rather than reinforcing the solitude crisis that we're all
| drifting to.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Public library in the US already lend ebook since a solid
| decade.
|
| It's a private product, called overdrive. Now rebranded as
| "Libby". Streamlined iOS/android app, works exactly as a
| physical books.
|
| Also: Public library are one of the few third space in the
| US. It's absolutely way more than lending books.
|
| I don't know where you live but I'm confident that visiting
| your local branch you will see a lot of activities taking
| place there.
| bluGill wrote:
| What I miss about physical books is browsing - looking at a
| shelf and grabbing what seems interesting. Somehow with
| ebooks it seems harder to do this.
| korse wrote:
| I agree heartily. Somehow we have all the media at our
| fingertips, but content discovery is miserable.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Instead, the physical space currently occupied by books
| could be used to promote communal activities, between kids
| and between adults. There are public buildings like that in
| Barcelona, that can be used by cultural neighborhood
| associations that allow the people of the city to bond in
| much the same way that ancient communal places like the
| church would have performed. So, for example, food
| distribution citizen cooperatives, or role playing/board game
| groups, singing and dancing groups, theater play associations
| or courses, historical recreation societies...the sky's the
| limit!
|
| What you're describing _is_ the function of many public
| libraries in the United States, especially in the last 30
| years. At least, one of the major functions: a place to meet,
| a place to study, a place to take classes, a place to get
| resources about social services, a place to sit inside when
| it 's raining and you don't have a home to go to.
|
| When I said that switching to a digital model would
| eventually diminish the role of libraries, I was thinking
| about this exactly. The literal loss of a shared community
| resource. But I am also noting that there are almost
| certainly knock-on effects of _having_ such a place that we
| don 't fully understand, and would not understand until years
| after we'd lost it.
|
| I am thinking, abstractly, about the consequences of over-
| indexing on a particular metric, at the cost of everything
| else. Especially everything else which was not known or
| considered in the original problem statement. If our metric
| is "access to information", we _could_ maximize that by
| getting rid of books and focusing exclusively on digital
| lending, and we could call it a success. What I 'm saying is:
| have we accounted for everything that would happen if we
| actually did that?
|
| As a species, we're pretty bad at guessing these things. We
| thought the internet would make us more civilized, we thought
| social media would bring us together, etc., etc.
|
| This starts to sound like a Chesterton's Fence argument, and
| I was trying to avoid that, but there's no denying it now.
| That's basically what I'm saying I guess!
| wrp wrote:
| Is amount of traffic the best measure of success for a
| "library"? How about if we take out the books, put in a food
| court, and supply free video gaming. The place will be packed.
| Would that be a successful "library"?
|
| I see proposals for changing the nature of libraries to
| increase public usage. I don't deny that some of the proposed
| services would be beneficial to the community, but they may not
| support the core library purpose of supplying information.
| MadcapJake wrote:
| The core mission of libraries to provide information has been
| supplanted by a device that exists in everyone's pocket.
| Information was a major need once, now it's trivially
| available. Libraries need to reinvent themselves.
|
| Let's convert libraries into on-premise AI supercomputers
| that anyone can rent time with, would be a good leap into the
| next age. Or VR rooms (I never have enough space at my
| house). They need to think bigger than just "info".
| bluGill wrote:
| Saddly the internet is not nearly as useful as it used to
| be for finding information. there was always some false
| information out there, but these days finding anything
| useful is harder. All the information is obvious AI
| generated spam.
| creer wrote:
| Open-stack still matters in browsing discovery and immediacy. I
| haven't yet seen a good interface to replace that. The mediocre
| interfaces might win soon just because too few items are on the
| shelf - and more are digital.
|
| Some libraries still use closed stacks. Some now use remote,
| closed stacks. Perhaps because their stacks are basically too
| dangerous or ugly for the general public - or too far. It might
| be debatable whether paging is more costly than self-service but
| at least that's the library's problem. What I miss is browsing
| discovery.
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(page generated 2023-11-08 23:01 UTC)