January 3, 2007
I'm not much of a library goer these days, but I was surprised to read via Tyler Cowen that some libraries are now pruning their collections based on circulation numbers. The fact that nobody has checked a book out in 24 months says nothing about the utility that last reader got out of reading it. And anyway, it seems to me the value of a collection might just as well be measured in terms of rarer and less popular items than whatever happens to be popular. This reminds me of the fact that some of the most recognizable words in English (and actually some of the first ones we teach our children) are used only relatively rarely -- the names of animals, or of musical instruments.
Oh joy, more Bill O'Reilly and Rachael Ray in the libraries. Our culture is saved.
I think it's telling that the only librarian in the article who actively said that they think the change is a bad idea used to work for the Library of Congress; the distinction between an archival library and a lending library is huge.
When you're looking at a lending library, whether the last reader got utility out of a book isn't the question--it's whether the sum total of all patrons could get more utility out of that space from some other title being there. Barrett recently asked me about microloans; consider a hypothetical microlender with $100/yr to loan out in $5 increments, but which currently could only accept applications from Indians over 6 feet tall. After my college friend Neil and I got our $10, invested it, and then paid back the $10, the lender still has $100 sitting in the bank, and probably nobody able to use it; just because Neil and I enjoyed the $10 doesn't mean that the lender shouldn't be able to lend to a more people by broadening its application criteria, does it?
To pre-empt the inevitable response: yes, books aren't necessarily fungible in the same way cash is, but once you're talking utility, you're not comparing books--you're comparing utils, which are definitionally fungible.
Hasn't that always been the difference between a lending library and a research library?
i guess i was unclear in my point about the last reader. the idea is that the sheer number of withdrawls isn't a good measure of how much utility people are getting out of a book, because it may be that some books give more utility per reader, or some readers get more utility than others. there may also be utility to society in just having a copy of the book there, even if it is unread.
the problem with utils is they are difficult to measure, which is why in this case they are using withdrawls as a surrogate. my contention is simply that they're a bad one.
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