The crux of the library in 2018 is exemplified here. It is important to have public input to the weeding process (thats what it is called in the US), because libraries are inherently hierarchical government bureaucracies, but funded by taxpayers, so taxpayers should have a say. Those books are essentially taxpayer property.
It is also true that the information inside those books is also taxpayer property, but right now the taxpayers can't access it because the Library industry, including it's professional organizations and professional educational programs, is technologically illiterate, but also lost sight of it's mission.
This fellow is called a crank, but he is cranking up the wrong tree. While he is complaining about a small number of important paper journals, and hoarders decry weeding, Alexandra Elbakyan is being threatened with prison for giving away taxpayer funded information - to the taxpayers. And Aaron Swartz... well. Rest in peace man. They just straight up killed him.
There is a saying that for books to survive, what they need is for an enormous amount of people to copy them. That is what allowed the ancient Roman works to survive, long after the Roman libraries were burnt down, and all the Roman bureaucracies in charge of maintaining important works had disappeared. That's why we can read old copies of the Bible or the Koran or the I Ching. That's why we have civilization, because people shared ideas instead of fighting about who, in the long run, far after useful value has been passed to the creator, actually owns them.
It's the modern way in which copyright is enforced, as though violators were terrorists, whether through the military or legal system or NDAs or intimidation, that's a much bigger threat to information surviving the long run, than librarians maintaining their stacks improperly.
It is also true that the information inside those books is also taxpayer property, but right now the taxpayers can't access it because the Library industry, including it's professional organizations and professional educational programs, is technologically illiterate, but also lost sight of it's mission.
This fellow is called a crank, but he is cranking up the wrong tree. While he is complaining about a small number of important paper journals, and hoarders decry weeding, Alexandra Elbakyan is being threatened with prison for giving away taxpayer funded information - to the taxpayers. And Aaron Swartz... well. Rest in peace man. They just straight up killed him.
There is a saying that for books to survive, what they need is for an enormous amount of people to copy them. That is what allowed the ancient Roman works to survive, long after the Roman libraries were burnt down, and all the Roman bureaucracies in charge of maintaining important works had disappeared. That's why we can read old copies of the Bible or the Koran or the I Ching. That's why we have civilization, because people shared ideas instead of fighting about who, in the long run, far after useful value has been passed to the creator, actually owns them.
It's the modern way in which copyright is enforced, as though violators were terrorists, whether through the military or legal system or NDAs or intimidation, that's a much bigger threat to information surviving the long run, than librarians maintaining their stacks improperly.