A Better Library

Clearing Out The Crap

Hands down the biggest problem in libraries today is ogres. Namely, really really really bad librarians. Here is the idea copypasted from the Texas section: For a better library, ensure the crappy librarians - who I have in my mind dubbed 'ogres' - get fired, and the good ones hired, in every library possible. To do this, propose and vote for bills substantially increasing the salary of all local and state librarians (this will be an email-your-politicians and vote for local and state issues thing on your local ballots) and which also require higher education - degrees in any field that are Master's or Ph.D. level in any field, not just library science - and also a track record of at least 5 years experience in libraries and/or bookstores with mostly positive feedback from library/bookstore patrons and to a lesser extent staff and coworkers - for all of them. - 10/2/26
Also copypasted from the Texas section: Please, people, stop donating your really shitty books to the library. Maybe I should have seen this coming but seriously, no one needs to read (insert -ism here) legitimizing discrimination and hatred against total strangers, Ann Coulter, or whatever else you may have inherited from your bigoted relative. It's really hard to find anything in this mess. - 10/2/26
Also copypasted from same: Understand the role of a librarian: read this point As further proof (I hope) that spite can be fuel for positive change, here's a response to the blatantly racist, bigoted, and otherwise worthless books in my local library. Tell me, when has anyone ever been truly uplifted by downtreading on someone else? The purpose of a good librarian is to improve the quality of life for every patron of their library. It is not to infect their minds with hatred, or disempower them by pretending that all their problems can be blamed on some scapegoat, but to assist them in understanding and overcoming the hurdles they face within themselves and outside of themselves. To expand their horizons, increase their freedoms, build on their happinesses, make literally everything in their lives better by leaps and bounds. Yes, hateful and bigoted books do have their place in a library. Censorship (except for very specific categories, and I define them here) serves nobody. But there's an old internet story about a professor who explained to his students about rocks, pebbles, and sand. He'd have a volunteer from the class try to fill a glass jar with them starting with the sand, then the pebbles, and then the rocks. There would be mostly sand, some pebbles, and precious few rocks. Then he'd have the same volunteer start by filling the jar with rocks, then pebbles, shaking the jar, and then sand, shaking the jar. It would be full of rocks, some pebbles, and plenty of sand anyway. The professor explained the rocks are the truly important things in life - family, health, sanity. The pebbles are the things that are necessary beyond that. And the sand is all the other goodies. You'll never have room for sufficient rocks if you focus too much on pebbles and sand. Same with any library. Fill it with good first and pick it well. Then with nice to haves, and then if you really want, with other shlock. - 10/2/26

New Stuff

Copypasted from Texas section: You can play at being a librarian too. Get a librarything account. If you want, get several. Give the username and password of one to you and your family. Give the username and password of another to you and your friends. Make either or both of these public, or make a public friends-and-family librarything account. Load it up with books you think belong in each, and organize it by categories that make sense. - 8/8/25 12/23/25: Trying it myself. New LibraryThing page made. Hopefully will eventually aggregate all the books I found that are helpful and good and categorize them somewhat neatly. Edit 1/4/26 Have I mentioned how much I hate the Dewey decimal system? Yeah, it makes sense to have a system of categorization that everyone uses which is in somewhat coherent order, but through years of using online catalogs versus years of browsing physical racks of books categorized with fucking Dewey, I have found that my own search methods work way, way better to find things I need quickly. In fact there was one bookstore that blew Dewey's categorization system completely out of the water with how it organized stuff: Borders, during roughly the 2000s. - 10/2/26
If you have any say in what's in a library's collections, whether you are a librarian or just a really motivated patron consider what is truly a worthy good goal. Would you like to become a better person, or help people do that? Would you like to learn science for real? Would you like to learn how to communicate better with others, learn how to manage a home better, or show your love and appreciation better to your family? These are all worthy goals. How about making featured shelves for them?
Libraries are unique in that they are one of the only services you can provide online for the whole world with very little expense and effort. If you can do it, do it. However small the scale it's got a huge impact. - 10/2/26
A special focus on textbooks is very badly needed in all libraries. Whatever universities are using, libraries need to have, especially online. Period. End of story. I don't think I need to explain all the reasons why. - 10/2/26
A major feature of online libraries should be the "download" function and a "print" function. Data storage is not infallible, and websites are not infallible, and being able to read things offline and without access to internet is an overpowered gift to be given. Enough things have lapsed from public copyright for this to be legal and free for all for a large variety of books and other printable resources. See: Project Gutenberg, Supercoloring, pictures of noncopyright art, the "print" function on recipes and on Instructables - 10/2/26
Why not put all OpenCourseware and supporting texts and video (from your library) from various universities in coherent order listed by subject online in each library? Or heck, whatever good stuff you have in a coherent enough order to be equivalent to a degree in each subject? The information is out there, but in sufficient amounts for a free online education? Not so much. This would require librarians with a degree in each subject, but it would be ridiculously worth it. Not everyone who would otherwise become a doctor, engineer, scientist or what have you happens to be rich and living in a first world country with access to a good college. Not by a long shot. Think about what sort of a difference this would make. Also, this would make it so that colleges would need to step up their game so people wouldn't have to go to college to learn a subject at all, they'd simply have to go to one to be really really good at that subject. What's at stake? Oh, nothing much. Little things like quality of life. Democracy. Freedom. - 10/2/26

Big Brain Time

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