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[Frumple]

It's a sad day when we have to save books from being destroyed by public libraries.

Most of the times I've ran into this, it was... mostly an issue of space. Having somewhere to put the things. I've had several libraries in my area just... give away books. Completely gratis. And still have some left over, with nowhere to put them. When every library in your area is literally packed and no one'll take things off your hands... eventually it's the burn pile/recycling plant or... nowhere, really. Costs money to shift many hundred pounds of processed wood pulp around, y'know?

Anyway, digitalization a-go-go. S'nice to be able to fit an entire county library in the space of a single hardback book.

[Lord Shonus]

I can guarantee you that even the most controversial material does not get "destroyed", unless you are alluding to the exact physical copy in your possesion. Considering some of the things I've personally sold at work in the last year alone, there's little moral reason to keep things around. Unless the sale price is too low to bother with, or it sits on the sale shelf for too long, we sell it, with the sole exception of certain videos and magazine that were legal in the late seventies and early eighties. Pretty much every single library book removed from shelves goes through us or a similar company.


@dhokarena

That would be a terrible idea. More than one billion unsold books wind up in landfills each year, constituting as much as 14% of landfill space used.

[The Darkling Wolf]

I remember my school not letting me take a shitload of very nice hardback books home because "We need to give other people a chance to pick some"

They burned them out back a few days later.

I think my principal was a Nazi.

[RedKing]

Well then you might as well shoot me now, Because despite my ability to varaciously read (perhaps because of it) I will often leave a book in tatters by then end of my reading if it ins't a hardcover or new. Sometimes even then.

I think you're taking Bacon a bit too literally. 

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." -- Sir Francis Bacon (the tastiest Sir)

[FearfulJesuit]

I remember my school not letting me take a shitload of very nice hardback books home because "We need to give other people a chance to pick some"

They burned them out back a few days later.

I think my principal was a Nazi.

^This is the sort of bullshit I was referring to.

[The Darkling Wolf]

I probably picked out about a hundred of them, would have gotten to take them home had I not asked permission from the headmaster first.

[fqllve]

@ misko: That's fine IMHO, and mostly unavoidable if you read a lot. I've had to throw away a few of my favorite novels because I read them so much that the bindings came off 

Yeah, paperbacks aren't really the kind of books you use for preservation anyway. You can do serious damage to a mass market paperback pretty easily and some copies just aren't as well made as others.

Plus reading while you eat is the best. Also margin notes.

[Darvi]

Speaking of paperbacks. The first paragraph from Pterry's Snuff. 'nuff said.

[RedKing]

I've never been one to write anything in a book. Seems sacreligious somehow. (Other than my 1st edition D&D Monster Manual, which was already in rough shape on the outside, so I figured coloring in the artwork with colored pencil wouldn't hurt.)

[Frumple]

Front/back cover, habitually. I'll usually have one on hand when I'm out and about, so they make good impromptu notepads. There are many paperbacks in my possession that now possess strings of numbers or cryptic, unfinished sentences on the inside of their covers, my memory no longer possessing the context to decipher their meaning with.

[FearfulJesuit]

Ah, I just remembered this.

I have a friend who has held a Gutenberg Bible.

[Darvi]

*takes a swig of Sprite ('cause it's the only sugary drink we have and I need the sugar badly)*
*puts bottle down*
*Sprite turns into Fountain Dew*

[Flying Dice]

Ah, I just remembered this.

I have a friend who has held a Gutenberg Bible.

Ungloved? YE GODS, THE INHUMANITY.

[FearfulJesuit]

Ah, I just remembered this.

I have a friend who has held a Gutenberg Bible.

Ungloved? YE GODS, THE INHUMANITY.

Yeah, I'm not sure whether he's really cool or whether no human alive should be permitted to do that.

[Aklyon]

(In b4 anyone tells me to get an e-reader: E-readers are the work of Satan. They are dangerous, sacrilegious abominations and I refuse to possess one.)

Also, e-readers cost electricity and can ninja your books away from you without warning.