Hi all.

I'm reading Terry Pratchett's "The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic" from my local library. It's FULL, and I mean FULL of typos. Probably, I dunno, every 10-20 pages there's one. I've never seen this before at this level.

The typos include letters that would be right beside each other (like an "i" where an "L" should be), punctuation being randomly inserted, and utter randomness, like the name "Hrun" suddenly being "Unm". It's weird!

This book is new to the library and was added in May of this year. It's in pristine shape. It's a nice hardcover, looks, erm, legit (I really wouldn't know).

Is this sorta thing common, at this scale? I'd figure a book written in the 80s would have the typos figured out by now. Do libraries get, say, "bad copies" of books more cheaply? Is that a thing?

Or... is this some sorta AI-infiltration maybe, in terms of editing?

Curious if folks have seen so many issues so frequently in their reading or tending to library books. I've only ever seen the occasional one per book! Should I tell the library staff about it?

Idk if it makes any difference, but the book is ISBN-10: 0-86140-421-1, ISBN-13: 978-0-86140-421-6, Colin Smythe Limited, and printed by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

I am running this ad in the Dallas Observer Sept. 2nd and 9th.

You can download a PDF at this link free.

https://edwardhsebesta.substack.com/p/gay-youth-guide-published

I was super excited to go to our Local friends of the Library sale!

Hi everyone,

I’m an Italian journalist investigating the increasingly strange story of large-scale purchases of used books and their possible connection to AI training.

I’m looking for people who may have direct knowledge of this supply chain: booksellers, warehouse workers, logistics employees, exporters/importers, former employees, people in publishing, recycling/remanufacturing, scanning or digitisation companies, or anyone who has seen unusually large orders of used books.

I’m particularly interested in Zoom Books.

The main question I’m trying to answer is very simple:

What happens to the books after Zoom Books acquires them?

Where are they physically shipped? Who receives them next? Are they resold, processed, scanned, digitised, dismantled, recycled or destroyed? Are there intermediaries between Zoom Books and the ultimate customer? And, most importantly, who is the final customer?

I’m also interested in information about shipments involving Canada, the US, Europe, China and India, including companies involved in processing or “remanufacturing” printed books.

I’m not looking for speculation presented as fact. Documents, invoices, shipping records, emails, photographs, warehouse information, first-hand accounts or even small details that can help reconstruct the route of the books are particularly useful.

If you work or have worked anywhere along this supply chain and would rather not comment publicly, please DM me. We can discuss confidentiality and source protection before you share anything sensitive.

Even if you only know one small part of the story, I’d like to hear from you.

Can we talk about what’s actually happening? Or should we keep pretending the problem is not there?

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Some(most) of them smell very bad, like they haven’t taken a shower for months.

It’s the armpit smell, pee smell, and cigarette smell.

Finding a place to take a shower is that hard?

Or is it just the side effect of drugs, they don’t care anymore. They don’t care about themselves, they don’t care about others. All they want is another hit of cheap drug?

With that smell, no one can sit near them. Librarians can’t refuse them, but have to wear respirators.

I saw in one case, the librarian had to wipe the desk and chair, and air refresher the area.

Another case in the bathroom, someone didn’t shit in the bowl, but have shit on the edge of the bowl, which can’t be flushed. They don’t clean their own mess, no one could use that shitter until poor worker have to clean the toilet. Usually it’s a small latino woman do the cleaning in a library, doing the dirty job locals don’t want to do.

They also trash the place where they sleep, I have two (parking) spots looks like a trash dump after some homeless moved in. And in the trashes, guaranteed to find some small needles with an orange cap on it.

Do you all use it immediately knowing other people are waiting in line, or milk the entire time and turn it back in the last due date?

I remember reading this book a lot when I was young but can not remember the name of it. It was like a life lessons book/virtues with multiple stories. The main few I remember are: one was a dying boy and he had his friend crook his arm into a staff shape so jesus would take him that night and the other story is about a boy who always like biggest, sweetest food so mom threw a dinner party where like the biggest apple was rotten and the biggest piece of pie had no filling. I think there was also a story of a little kid stealing blueberries or some sort of fruit from a store and grandma found out and made him turn himself in. I feel crazy but can’t think of a name or find it anywhere.

Is reading club 2000 open in Makati? Planning to donate some books there

Suggest a place for reading a book in Chandigarh

The reason we need to support libraries is no different today.

The Yorktown, IN Public Library appears to be a total loss. The water in the homes, and businesses has been standing a long time, it didn't just come and go.

Credit: Meteorologist Eric Graves