Comment by OldHand2018 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by OldHand2018 | Hacker News Reader

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So obviously, the policy isn’t perfect - no policy is perfect.

Keep in mind that most of the really important books, especially reference books, have never been allowed to be checked out from the library.

Chicago did this same policy about 2 years ago. It has similar demographics as New York, so you would assume that any problems New York is going to face would have already been seen in Chicago. And as far as I’ve heard, the benefits have far, far outweighed the problems. My family never had problems with late fees at the library (maybe $5 per year?), but the new policy definitely changed our library experience for the better.

Also, New York, Chicago, and many other library systems have extremely strong philanthropic organizations attached to them. It is very prestigious to be on the board and it is very prestigious to raise or donate money to the library. They are very well run and very well funded. Losing/Replacing 1-2% more books per year is not a financial issue for them. The ridiculous cost of eBooks are more of an issue than lost paper books.

This can also be solved by ensuring one copy stays in the library but buying extras if they're popular and held out for long periods of time.

Making sure one copy stays in the library is probably a larger challenge then the problem it seeks to solve.

But for sure, large library systems have lots of copies of popular books. I just went over to the NYPL website and clicked on some links to get a list of popular books last year. Here's an example where they have 81 copies of the book:

https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb22051849?lang...

You can also see that some books are far more popular in some locations than others. New York Public Library has "only" ~20 copies of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" while Chicago Public Library has 360 copies:

https://browse.nypl.org/iii/encore/record/C__Rb17190851__San...

https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S126C676207

Doesn't every book have one of these in it, or a library specific RFID tag? https://www.gresswell.co.uk/date-labels.html

Just stick "for reference only" on there.

I haven't seen those kind of labels on library books in a really long time!

But yes, each book has a "barcode" that uniquely identifies it. The thing is, these large library systems have dozens of physical buildings all over the city (a paradox? The larger the city, the more likely it is that everyone can walk to the library) and a specific copy of the book lives in a specific library building.

If you decide that one specific copy is the "reference" copy, then nobody can check it out from their local library branch while people that live everywhere else in the city can check it out from their local library branch! So you are going to need to make the "reference" copy a dynamic thing, which is a lot of effort to solve a problem that in real life is really minor.

Big city libraries (at least in North America - I know Toronto is the same) are amazing, because libraries get better with scale. And perhaps because of their nature, they seem to attract the kind of people that are really good at managing them. I doubt you can find a big city library where the residents think it is a cesspool of corruption. They've got the resources and management to just buy extra copies of books - it's not worth doing anything else.

At that point your library just becomes a book distribution centre.

Full circle!

I'm curious how the new policy in Chicago changed your family's experience for the better. Can you say more?

Side note: late fees were always an incentive for me to return books. Not necessarily on time, mind you. But, soon enough. While I'm down with the new rules (Brooklynite here), I also worry about an increase in books just never being returned. Already a minor nuisance even with fees.

The main difference is that you stop worrying about things.

In the past, if you took a book out, you'd have to remember in the back of your mind that you have to return it by a specific date. My kids like to have dozens of books out at a time. In the past there was always the worry that you would take a stack of books back but forget one or two; you'd search the whole apartment just in case.

That's all gone now. If the library needs the book back, they email you and then you go look around for it. Otherwise, you do everything on your own schedule, whenever it is convenient. And if your kid wants to keep a book for 6 months or more, that's also fine.

I'm sure that NYPL will need to buy more books as part of the adjustment. But they can. It's totally worth it.

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