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Comment by r0ze-at-hn | Hacker News Reader

For those that have not visited your local library lately. Along with books, I regularly borrow audiobooks, whole tv series, movies, switch and ps5 games. And they give me access to yet another movie and music streaming service that they pay for. Once I add in the library system and requesting stuff from other libraries it is rarely that I can't get access to something I am interested in.

This isn't the library I went to as kids that had a tiny rack of VHS tapes in the back. They seem to have fully embraced the digital era.

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Some have, but this is far far from universal and it’s a bit annoying when people insist that it is all libraries.

it's possible! encouraging people to go to the library is a net good on society.

It's insane to me anyone would downvote this comment (edit: or flag my disbelief for being somehow irrelevant to conversation). The public library system is quite possibly the best thing this country has ever invented.

> The public library system is quite possibly the best thing this country has ever invented.

If you are writing from Egypt I think you have a strong case

It is true that there have been some level of public libraries available throughout history. I am referring to the wide availability of public access that effectively democratized literacy (in concert with the public school system, of course).

The library system and national parks are both absolute bangers.

The problem with the statement is it's naive insistence that i live in op's world. It's the inane insistence that we dont live in the third largest country and the insistence that everything has been homogenized and is one simple vanilla flavor.

Frankly at this point it's just virtue signaling on the order of "I'm not a raging consumerist like you, I use a public good instead." The demand to be thanked, and the refusal to be criticized are part-and-parcel of the virtue signal.

This country?

There are people here (venture crapitalists) that would love to disassemble all public libraries for something much more horrible.

It was likely one them, or their lackeys, that -1'ed you.

I don't see a societal benefit in people borrowing video games and watching DVDs that aren't educational. At least non educational books might expect the reader to expand their minds, and to a lesser extent movies.

But the majority of video games and movies being produced are empty wastes of time. It seems to me loaning those items is just an attempt to stay relevant lest libraries become vacant and useless. What other value is there in loaning out PlayStation games?

Because like books, games, films, TV, etc. are culture and everyone should have the opportunity to experience culture no matter what.

Trying to limit libraries to "educational" content is preposterous.

Off the top of my head, it seems like a great way to give access to content (games, movies, etc) to those that may have been able to afford it on their own. It may not have a ton of educational value, but some mindless entertainment goes a long way towards happiness sometimes. A happy citizenry is probably a societal benefit.

We don't need libraries for that tough, only more equitable laws that do not put the profits of hollywood and similar groups before society at large.

Without video games exposure as a youth I’d likely be an unemployed failure. It stoked an interest that has since sustained a twenty plus year career. Piracy gained me that access back then, glad to hear it’s now more easily available to fuel the passion of a new generation.

"I don't see a societal benefit in people borrowing video games and watching DVDs that aren't educational." "loaning those items is just an attempt to stay relevant lest libraries become vacant and useless." you have answered your own question.

We should not accept this at the end goal though. Libraries were needed when there were physical things you had to store that were impractical to have in every home and could only be duplicated with significan effort and cost.

In the digital age it's absurd to say that we should have to rely on public libraries to access our culture when we have the means for everyone to have their own personal library in their pocket.

It doesn't help that libraries that do carry digital content have fully embraced DRM, thus giving a pretense of legitimacy to anti-user technologies and absurd laws that give them teeth and thereby weakening attempts to correct problem.

> have the means for everyone to have their own personal library in their pocket.

and how do you intend to implement public iPhones and connectivity for the homeless?

My library has this too, and a ton of ebooks, and a 3D printer that you just have to cover the cost of material to use, and they occasionally have free museum passes, national/state park passes, etc.

Far cry from what they used to be, and, well, you're paying for it anyway via taxes so silly to not use it.

Amusingly I have requested and received over a hundred dvds and some books from my library, but am still on the waiting list for an ebook of one book that I already got in hardcover and read.

Add on: ask your local library if they have: Libby, Kanopy or Hoopla

Libby / Overdrive for ebooks are a racket. The publishers sell ‘disposable’ licenses that expire after something like only 20 uses or a few years, whichever comes first. Support your local library, but don’t support greedy publishers.

Yeah, sad that libraries have embraced these DRM schemes instead of fighting for their rights to preserve our culture without the need for rightholder approval.

Don’t libraries negotiate the licensing? If I want digital copies what else can I do? Libby or Amazon which is worse?

> If I want digital copies what else can I do?

File sharing is clearly the most user friendly and therefore correct choice.

Kanopy is great, and very nearly as good as the mainstream streaming platforms in terms of selection and software quality.

Hoopla, however, is abysmal both in selection (though this depends on your local library) and in software/service quality. The search is broken, and it has some of the most confusing UX I've ever experienced. It's as if it actively wants to prevent you from watching anything.

That’s just what the internet was like many years ago, slow, bad search, clunky, jerky not smooth, and with lots of right angles.

Hoopla is just based off a relic.

Anyone know how to donate a movie or audiobook to a library (in situations where they don’t have them)?

I’m interested in the concept of donating media to the library instead of buying it for myself. However, it doesn’t seem like there’s a simple way to do that…

They don't get to use regular consumer digital media. They have to use specially licensed extra-expensive versions that permit lending.

Blu-ray is 'digital media' but because it's physical, US libraries can buy regular copies and lend them out as they wish.

See 'first sale doctrine': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine?wprov=sfla...

It isn't that it's actually illegal, but you can't sell/lend/rent what the distributor refuses to sell to you, and video stores would have the in demand new releases weeks or even months before they'd be sold on the consumer market. They got them because the likes of Blockbuster were willing to pay $70 or $80 in 19800's dollars for that privilege.

Can you give an example of a Blu-ray disk that's available to borrow at your local library, that isn't yet available for purchase on the consumer market?

I’m not sure that’s the case for physical items like DVDs, because I’ve never seen anything indicating it’s special and the replacement costs are in line with “buy it on Amazon”.

No, physical items have reasonable legal protection against the IP holder trying to dictate what you do with it after purchase. The first sale doctrine allows libraries, game and video rental shops and such to physically lend copyrighted works. But when "purchasing" an ebook is actually just purchasing a heavily restricted and revocable license to personally use a work but not share it in any way, it doesn't apply. So libraries have to buy special ebook licenses that cost several times more than consumer ones and expire after dinner number of views. I assume it's similar for audiobooks and movies, but it's all up to individual publishers what restrictions and costs they'll impose on the licenses that permit lending.

It's insane really - a library could buy a book and a robot with a camera, and let you turn the pages using the robot, and that would be fine; but ebooks are different, like software.

Depends on the library and its staff.

Most libraries have way more than they can fit on the shelves, but if you talked with the purchasing person you might be able to work something out.

The vast vast majority of donated media goes straight into the "sell at the next fundraiser" pile. Partly this is because much of what's donated is not in high demand (They tend to get lots of Time-Life picture histories and things like that that were hawked by the millions on infomercials). Mostly it's because what they need is funding - they already have way more material than they have shelf space for most of the time.

Yeah the most likely “work things out” is they’ll let you buy brand new releases and donate them the day after release (saving them from having to buy it).

Many have streaming digital checkouts, too. Either through themselves or through broader networks.

That depends a lot on the library. My local library has a pretty limited digital selection.

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