While I agree libraries, as so many institutions, can be unbelievably archaic in their retrieval & search logistics, imho it seems, to the contrary of what I think you mean to imply, to make total sense for libs to more (i) go into providing providing some escape room from distraction (as you also point out), all while (ii) not becoming more ambitious in terms of trying to have more physical books, now that it’s clearer than ever before that the offer of writings is so vast that having a physical copy of most pieces of interest is simply illusory.
I guess there’s only so many people who’d benefit exactly from an x-times larger (or acc. to your taste ‘better’) selection of books to randomly wait in the shelves; if ‘visually stumbling upon books’ was so much a point for many, then we’d probably have more apps on our screens that provide this. Actually yes people seem to like stumbling into content, so we have TikTok, and Youtube also going into that direction, but turns out for most people that’s less about finding books to read but some other media instead, even if there are of course bookshops who do offer also exactly that and make their living from it.
I did stumble upon for me hugely important books in libraries in an ancient past, but I nowadays it seems hugely more efficient to roam online in the right places to get hints about what could interest me to read than randomly gloss at book covers.
From a public perspective, libraries probably are making good choices. From my personal, selfish perspective, they’re not. Does that clear things up?
Also, I have noticed going to libraries results in sampling from a different distribution of books. The boredom forcing me to read stuff I usually wouldn’t is a part of it, as is the fact I’m not self-selecting into niche scenes which recommend a narrow slice of books.
From a public perspective, libraries probably are making good choices. From my personal, selfish perspective, they’re not. Does that clear things up?
It does! Questions (for my taste) then a bit the wording of the title (as well as potentially the case for the frontpage classification as opposed to personal blogpost, though of course that’d not be your ‘fault’)
that’s why I added it as addendum in parenthesis and with the explicit “though of course that’d not be your ‘fault’”—I mentioned this as answer in part for the public/LW as a whole.
While I agree libraries, as so many institutions, can be unbelievably archaic in their retrieval & search logistics, imho it seems, to the contrary of what I think you mean to imply, to make total sense for libs to more (i) go into providing providing some escape room from distraction (as you also point out), all while (ii) not becoming more ambitious in terms of trying to have more physical books, now that it’s clearer than ever before that the offer of writings is so vast that having a physical copy of most pieces of interest is simply illusory.
I guess there’s only so many people who’d benefit exactly from an x-times larger (or acc. to your taste ‘better’) selection of books to randomly wait in the shelves; if ‘visually stumbling upon books’ was so much a point for many, then we’d probably have more apps on our screens that provide this. Actually yes people seem to like stumbling into content, so we have TikTok, and Youtube also going into that direction, but turns out for most people that’s less about finding books to read but some other media instead, even if there are of course bookshops who do offer also exactly that and make their living from it.
I did stumble upon for me hugely important books in libraries in an ancient past, but I nowadays it seems hugely more efficient to roam online in the right places to get hints about what could interest me to read than randomly gloss at book covers.
From a public perspective, libraries probably are making good choices. From my personal, selfish perspective, they’re not. Does that clear things up?
Also, I have noticed going to libraries results in sampling from a different distribution of books. The boredom forcing me to read stuff I usually wouldn’t is a part of it, as is the fact I’m not self-selecting into niche scenes which recommend a narrow slice of books.
It does! Questions (for my taste) then a bit the wording of the title (as well as potentially the case for the frontpage classification as opposed to personal blogpost, though of course that’d not be your ‘fault’)
I thought whether a post is personal or goes onto the front page was up to the mods.
that’s why I added it as addendum in parenthesis and with the explicit “though of course that’d not be your ‘fault’”—I mentioned this as answer in part for the public/LW as a whole.