$1500 + 15 to 20 days work. However wonderful librarians are, they don't get paid $1000/day, so it's still a good deal. But not quite as good a deal as the headline suggests.
Also, after you install it you have to support it, and these are not the easiest customers in the world to deal with. (Not the worst, either, but an intermediate engineer answer the phone and walk you through how to clear a print jam -- not that any of our customers would ever call four times in a year about a print jam, mind you, this is totally hypothetical -- is not the cheapest endeavor in the world.)
The economies of scale would still apply but it's probably more involved than just churning out kiosks.
If he is employed to do such work, then his salary should definitely be counted!
Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a valid point.
OTOH if the marginal cost of production is really 1/20th of the next-best solution, then his employer should easily be able to recoup that by rolling out a bunch of these.
Not necessarily, if his job includes some degree of "on demand" responsibilities--it said he was a librarian who handles some tech support, so chances are a lot of what he's being paid for is just being there when needed. On a slow day, he'd be there anyway and getting paid the same, so working on something like this is a clear win over, I don't know, dusting shelves or something.
"I can start a startup for the cost of renting a server...that's like $50/mo!"
Oh yeah, there's also the 1000s of hours of your previously free time that also goes in.
He donated his expertise to the community, and had a good time. I'm having a hard time finding the downside.