Still Other Problems at Libraries

[apl68]

It must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that.  Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole.  Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.

[kaysixteen]

Some of those educated professionals, managers and engineers, recruited to work at the plants may choose not to live in your town because, owing to snobbery, elitism, etc., they feel doing so may be beneath them, but others may choose to undertake the long commute from college town, big city, etc., because, well, they may well feel that, ahem, they are just not particularly *welcome* in your blue-collar community (esp if the professional in question is not an evangelical Christian, a Southerner, etc).  I am not at all sure that they would be wrong to think this.   The residential sorting in this country along educational lines has grown very very stark.

[memyself]

It must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that.  Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole.  Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.

We in academic libraries deal with the attempted donations of many collections of retiring or deceased faculty. Larger libraries often already own the same things that are being offered, and just can't justify taking in that amount of duplicative material. Exceptions can be made for especially high-demand titles, or to replace worn-out copies. And, ooh, the print journal runs that represent a career's worth of belonging to an organization...
Faculty papers are another fact of life in our corner of the library world. We get to have  "no, thank you" conversations on a semi-regular basis, and we do attempt to find the library elsewhere that will offer the round hole for the round peg.

[spork]

Some of those educated professionals, managers and engineers, recruited to work at the plants may choose not to live in your town because, owing to snobbery, elitism, etc., they feel doing so may be beneath them, but others may choose to undertake the long commute from college town, big city, etc., because, well, they may well feel that, ahem, they are just not particularly *welcome* in your blue-collar community (esp if the professional in question is not an evangelical Christian, a Southerner, etc).  I am not at all sure that they would be wrong to think this.   The residential sorting in this country along educational lines has grown very very stark.

You are overestimating the biases of highly educated employees. The engineers and managers aren't in small towns anymore because the industrial production isn't in the small towns anymore.

I will add that today it is very difficult to re-establish industrial jobs in areas where they once flourished, because of the overall scarcity of a technologically competent and willing workforce, as this NYT article documents: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/business/tsmc-phoenix-arizona-semiconductor.html.

[apl68]

It must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that.  Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole.  Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.

We in academic libraries deal with the attempted donations of many collections of retiring or deceased faculty. Larger libraries often already own the same things that are being offered, and just can't justify taking in that amount of duplicative material. Exceptions can be made for especially high-demand titles, or to replace worn-out copies. And, ooh, the print journal runs that represent a career's worth of belonging to an organization...
Faculty papers are another fact of life in our corner of the library world. We get to have  "no, thank you" conversations on a semi-regular basis, and we do attempt to find the library elsewhere that will offer the round hole for the round peg.

I didn't deal with this sort of thing when I worked at an academic library.  I'm sure the relevant personnel in acquisitions faced such situations now and then.  I do recall one of my graduate professors having a house completely overrun with books of all sorts.  Much of it consisted of a unique collection in a particular sub-field.  The university ended up accepting this collection and making it one of its special collections.  I knew just enough about it to know that those tasked with cataloging and preserving the new collection were going to have their hands full.

[jerseyjay]

It must feel good to be able to find a home at an academic library for a collection like that.  Once in a while a round peg fits into a round hole.  Sometimes it's just a matter of finding a round hole somewhere.

We in academic libraries deal with the attempted donations of many collections of retiring or deceased faculty. Larger libraries often already own the same things that are being offered, and just can't justify taking in that amount of duplicative material. Exceptions can be made for especially high-demand titles, or to replace worn-out copies. And, ooh, the print journal runs that represent a career's worth of belonging to an organization...
Faculty papers are another fact of life in our corner of the library world. We get to have  "no, thank you" conversations on a semi-regular basis, and we do attempt to find the library elsewhere that will offer the round hole for the round peg.

I didn't deal with this sort of thing when I worked at an academic library.  I'm sure the relevant personnel in acquisitions faced such situations now and then.  I do recall one of my graduate professors having a house completely overrun with books of all sorts.  Much of it consisted of a unique collection in a particular sub-field.  The university ended up accepting this collection and making it one of its special collections.  I knew just enough about it to know that those tasked with cataloging and preserving the new collection were going to have their hands full.

I believe that there was a cover story in the AHA Perspectives about this.

My small, non-research university has had this issue, with probably a dozen professors either dying or retiring and leaving offices full of books. Some of the material was given away to faculty and students. Some of it was given away to certain charities that specialize in books. Our (non research) library took a very small number. A community group took some more in a related field.  But much of it is either still sitting in empty offices (because there are no lines to replace the departed) or thrown away.

I tried to interest several used books in a 200-mile radius (four states and two metro areas) and had almost no luck with the books of several professors. I know that other schools have had similar issues.

Three years ago, I tried to get rid of 5 boxes of books (trade paperbacks in good shape) and I finally found a charity bookshop that took them. Although I thought I had been honest with them, they were less than happy to find out it was so many boxes.

I joked with an administrator that the school itself should open up a used books shop and I would volunteer to staff it once a week.

I think there is a confluence of a decline in literacy (students often do not read for pleasure), a rise in baby boomer retirements, and the fact that even readers like me do not feel the need to keep many things that can be found online easily.

(I do not keep my own academic journals for more than a year or so: I usually hand them out in class as part of an exercise to look at academic articles.) 

[apl68]

Some of those educated professionals, managers and engineers, recruited to work at the plants may choose not to live in your town because, owing to snobbery, elitism, etc., they feel doing so may be beneath them, but others may choose to undertake the long commute from college town, big city, etc., because, well, they may well feel that, ahem, they are just not particularly *welcome* in your blue-collar community (esp if the professional in question is not an evangelical Christian, a Southerner, etc).  I am not at all sure that they would be wrong to think this.  The residential sorting in this country along educational lines has grown very very stark.

Yes, I suppose the local custom of staging occasional torch-wielding pogroms against people that ain't from around here and have the wrong color skin might have something to do with it.  Only this morning I watched a mob run a Spanish-speaking roofing crew out of town at gunpoint. But what can one expect, given that we're a small, southern, blue-collar town with no colleges and a lot of people who don't like to read books?  When you think about it, it's kind of incredible that we manage to have so many widely-regarded local citizens from a variety of other states and countries here, and a Mayor who's a well-educated woman who didn't grow up here, and a City Council member whose parents were Latin American immigrants.

Uninformed stereotyping aside, the suggestion that potential new residents might not find a particular community a good cultural fit is a fair point.  From what I've seen, though, it's more of a generational issue.  The members of the postwar generation who relocated here appear to have been content to live near their work, and drive an hour or so on weekends to enjoy more varied shopping and dining options.  And they were prepared to work locally to build new cultural institutions, like an art league, a little theater group, and a large new library facility.  Current generations seem to prioritize residing near the concentrations of amenities they want, and commute or telecommute to work if they have to.  And they don't seem to have much interest in committed group efforts to build or perpetuate community institutions.  These are tendencies that have been well-documented all over the country.

Differences in corporate culture may also have something to do with it.  Back in the day, the corporation that owned the main sources of employment here did a good deal of outreach work to support local institutions.  They encouraged their educated managers and engineers to settle and make their long-term homes here.  Today's corporate cultures often seem to transfer their staff regularly in a deliberate effort to keep them from setting down roots.  And our region's current corporate overlords gave up even pretending to care about the community a long time ago.

[apl68]

I believe that there was a cover story in the AHA Perspectives about this.

My small, non-research university has had this issue, with probably a dozen professors either dying or retiring and leaving offices full of books. Some of the material was given away to faculty and students. Some of it was given away to certain charities that specialize in books. Our (non research) library took a very small number. A community group took some more in a related field.  But much of it is either still sitting in empty offices (because there are no lines to replace the departed) or thrown away.

I tried to interest several used books in a 200-mile radius (four states and two metro areas) and had almost no luck with the books of several professors. I know that other schools have had similar issues.

Three years ago, I tried to get rid of 5 boxes of books (trade paperbacks in good shape) and I finally found a charity bookshop that took them. Although I thought I had been honest with them, they were less than happy to find out it was so many boxes.

I joked with an administrator that the school itself should open up a used books shop and I would volunteer to staff it once a week.

I think there is a confluence of a decline in literacy (students often do not read for pleasure), a rise in baby boomer retirements, and the fact that even readers like me do not feel the need to keep many things that can be found online easily.

(I do not keep my own academic journals for more than a year or so: I usually hand them out in class as part of an exercise to look at academic articles.) 

It's a widespread issue.  Sometimes it's worth a little more effort to find a good home for some books or other media that might still be potentially useful, as you mention above.  I'm leaving town for the weekend to visit family as soon as we close this evening, and plan to drop off a batch of personal books I'm done with in those free library outlets an hour from here while I'm in transit.

Expending your old academic journals as part of a teaching exercise sounds like a great way of repurposing them!  At lot of our discarded or donated periodicals go out on the free table.  We've learned over the years what people around here will take from the free table, and what they won't.  We also save children's books for release through a Little Free Library that we maintain at a local school.  So a lot of what we receive does get used, one way or another.

I've tried to learn not to be too sentimental about old books.  Much as the knowledge in books should be preserved in principle--and physically preserved, not just in e-archives that can disappear in all sorts of ways--most individual copies of them don't really need to be.  Books are like most artifacts in having a finite useful life.  I never thought, though, that being a librarian would involve ushering so many old books across the rainbow bridge.

[spork]

[...]

staging occasional torch-wielding pogroms

[...]

This made me chuckle. I doff my hat in respect.

And they don't seem to have much interest in committed group efforts to build or perpetuate community institutions.  These are tendencies that have been well-documented all over the country.

Packer's The Unwinding talks about this.

Regarding the dead professors' office collections of books on arcane topics, unfortunately academics still train themselves to assume that their particular niches are essential to civilization's continued existence. In reality it's a manifestation of delusions of grandeur. No one but you cares that you're the world's foremost specialist in moths as metaphors in 17th century Spanish poetry. Stop making other people clean up after you.

[kaysixteen]

Hmmmm.... have any of those long-commuting-from-city/college town professionals actually *told* you that the reason they do not live locally is that they feel your  town is beneath them?  My opinion, IOW, is almost without any question no 'less well informed' than yours is.

Probably both are true, maybe often for the same person.  My point is unquestionably true, however, with regard to the ever increasing residential sorting alongst educational lines (educational homogamy is also a strong thing now, whereas both of these things did not exist in the post-war period).  I myself am stunningly more educated than 95% of the people who actually live here in Rusty City, and, well, it is tough-- people here do not act, think, etc., like I do, and are not interested in the same things.  And I am an evangelical... but it is tough enough in my own church to often have to just keep my mouth shut, rather than enter into unedifying arguments.  And as a Southerner,  you are probably not  really all that aware that, even in 2024, many Yankees, esp highly educated ones like myself, still feel viscerally unwelcome in the rural south, which is in many significant respects a different country from urban/ suburban New England.   You may not like this, and I do not deny that we Yanks bear some responsibility for it, but it is what it is.

[spork]

As I've previously mentioned in another thread, the most racist place I've ever lived was Boston in the late 1980s. Later I lived in different locations in North Carolina, a few of which were definitely not urban, while married to someone who was a very visible minority. Other than people knocking on our front door asking what church we belonged to and if we'd like to attend Sunday services at theirs, I never felt uncomfortable.

As for self-important American academics thinking their book collections are repositories of infinite wisdom, I think that is universal.

[jerseyjay]

We also save children's books for release through a Little Free Library that we maintain at a local school.  So a lot of what we receive does get used, one way or another.

I have found that getting rid of children's books is actually the easiest. Much of them I have, of course, donated to relatives and friends who have their own children, just as a got many books for my daughter this way.

My wife's boss somehow accumulated several thousands of children's books a few years back and I donated them to the department of childhood education. Some of them they used for training. Some of them they gave to local schools.

Adult books are much harder, alas.

A while ago I had a colleague who was an adjunct. He died during Covid, but he left an apartment and a storage unit full of books. A community bookstore he volunteered with opened up a another location and now sells his books (and others) for a few dollars each. I think it is a wonderful memorial. I am not sure of the economics involved, and obviously this is not possible for everybody.

I've tried to learn not to be too sentimental about old books.  Much as the knowledge in books should be preserved in principle--and physically preserved, not just in e-archives that can disappear in all sorts of ways--most individual copies of them don't really need to be.  Books are like most artifacts in having a finite useful life.  I never thought, though, that being a librarian would involve ushering so many old books across the rainbow bridge.

This is probably a healthy attitude. I can accept it with mass market or trade books. But where I find it harder is when one recognizes that, for example, my own book collection represents years of work and thousands of dollars and thousands of kilometres. So I understand the sentiment, but I am not just there yet. Perhaps by the time I retire, I will have got to that level, so not to force my own heirs to deal with my books.

[kaysixteen]

Boston ain't like that now, and even then, calling Boston, or anywhere else up here, 'racist', in the same way you would call rural southlands territory that, just ignores what words mean.  40 years back working-class Bostonian white folks were still dealing with the bad forced busing policies foisted upon them by limo libs from the burbs, who never would have stood for those inner-city black folks being bussed into their hoity-toity schools.

[FishProf]

40 years ago was 1984.  At that point the METCO program,

"those inner-city black folks being bussed into their hoity-toity schools"

was 20 years old. 

The perception of racism persists.  Here is one explanation of why that is/might be.

[apl68]

I'd put this in the "Venting" thread, but it's relevant here--we've spent the past week dealing with recurring internet outages and network crashes.  According to our IT contractor, who is based out of town, the former keep causing the latter.  When we have internet service and can get hold of him, he can remote in to patch up the network.  He plans to make a rare on-site visit in the next few days to work on making the network more resilient.

Meanwhile, I've spent a good deal of time trying repeatedly to reboot modems and routers, and enduring our alleged internet provider's automated and overseas "service" systems.  What we need is an on-site visit by a technician, which we have yet to receive.  When I checked the provider's automated system for the status of our service ticket this morning, it basically told us that they'd send a technician when they're good and ready to.  They expect to have the issue resolved no later than a date six days from now.

We're a public library.  In today's world internet access and computer service are fundamental to what we do.  Members of our community depend on us for internet access, for education, employment, and access to government services.  Our automated circulation system won't even work without internet.  And we've never been able to get truly reliable and adequate service here.  For a time we maintained two internet providers so that we'd always have a backup, but then one of them abandoned this region.  The available infrastructure just hasn't been adequate to give us what we need to serve the public.

The culture war issues may get the headlines, but for many libraries it's these mundane, day-to-day matters that eat our lunch.