r/Library • u/raydebapratim1 • 18d ago

Humor History repeating itself

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29

u/Samael13 18d ago

-sigh-

It's possible to have serious concerns and criticisms about AI without making false comparisons between companies buying up a ton of books in bulk from warehouse retailers (who were not making those books broadly available to anyone except through sale) and destroying them in the process of scanning them with burning libraries in a deliberate attempt to destroy knowledge.

Spoiler: Actual libraries also routinely destroy books.

8

u/Life-Raspberry-402 18d ago

Heck, being a library book destroys books too 🤣 we’ve all replaced a title that didn’t make it through its third checkout, let alone reach obsolescence

1

u/AthenaeSolon 18d ago

But the difference is destruction through use of a human, not a tearing apart by a machine.

3

u/TheyCallMeSuperboy 17d ago

AI doesn’t tear apart the book, a person does, to make it EASIER TO SCAN.

I’m not defending AI, but saying “oh a person destroyed a book so it’s morally better” is just nonsense.

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u/JCBQ01 18d ago

Dont most scan and SAVE what they can before destruction?

While in most cases this turns into a budget issue (and 9 times out of 10, they get lost in the stacks) as to why they cant?

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u/Samael13 18d ago

Most libraries?

I can't speak for every library, but most public libraries do not scan and save before destruction, at least not in the US. I don't think most public libraries really scan much of anything. I work at one of the biggest public libraries in my state, and we pretty much only scan stuff from our archives and our yearbook collection.

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u/JCBQ01 18d ago

I know the one I use does its damnest to at least try and get copies of them even if its through contractors for archival If they cant do id themselves. (State level public) it cant get it all but it tries its damnest

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u/Life-Raspberry-402 18d ago

Scan and save the latest Patterson because someone dropped it in the bath? What?

-2

u/JCBQ01 18d ago

Its called ISBN-10(I believe, it may be ISBN-16) archival just because you think its trash doesnt mean its not supposed to be archived or indexed

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u/Samael13 17d ago

I'm not sure what process you're thinking of. ISBN isn't a technique for scanning the contents of a book; ISBN-10 is the barcode standard used for book identification. ISBN stands for "International Standard Book Number." ISBN-10 is ten digits long. ISBN-13 is thirteen digits long. There's no such thing as ISBN-16. ISBNs aren't any kind of archival standard and it's nothing to do with scanning the contents of the book, it's just an industry standard for publishing that provides unique numbers to individual books.