But you create a false dichotomy between books no one checks ou' and books with useful and relevant information. if a book doesn't get checked out for, say, a year, is that an indication that it contains no useful information? on what basis?

i'd go further and say this is not a case of flawed metrics but flawed ideology. i don't want my tax dollars to fund the book-equivalent of redbox. i want my tax dollars to fund the preservation and archiving and availability of knowledge, regardless of how 'popular' an algorithm says it is.

granted, a library cannot hold infinite books. but i'd take the curation of a librarian over an algorithm any day of the week.