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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Modern libraries lack the money to pay people to do the basic things to take a book as you might get from the bookstore and get it ready to go into a library’s collection. These are things from picking a way to categorize the book so it can be found in the catalog, to adding the shelf numbers and sticker telling you what library owns it, to wrapping the outside of hardback books with that clear plastic, and several other important tasks. Big University libraries still have the staff to do this to books that don’t come from the major distributors but their time is precious.

    Instead, libraries purchase what are called “shelf ready” services from the companies that distribute books specifically for libraries.

    There were like 4 companies that worked with most libraries. When I was a Director we had Baker & Taylor and Ingram and would order form whoever had the shortest wait time or better price. Many places worked with just 1 distributor and B&T was one of the biggest and oldest.

    So B&T announced a few months ago they were in financial trouble. Then ReaderLink said they were going to buy B&T so customers shouldn’t panic.

    And then ReaderLink pulled out the deal suddenly and B&T is in shutdown and never going to reopen. Their staff were immediately laid off and flocked to the r/librarians and.r/libraries to tell us.














  • The second line of the article really sums it up from my perspective. “President George W. Bush was obsessed with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and deliberately misled the American people about who was responsible for the 9/11 attack.”

    I was curious how the nebulous connection between Iraq and Afghanistan was perceived by those who weren’t as aware of the older Bush’s history in the area. In the hours following 9/11, a common question among my peers was “How will this be twisted into us going into Iraq?”



  • A lady standing on my neighbor’s back porch smoking a cigarette cussed me out when I let the dog out. Except my neighbor had moved out last week (I had helped) and I knew it hadn’t sold yet. A girlfriend of one of the guys up the block was having a episode of some kind and had decided to squat in my neighbor’s home. I locked the door, waiting for the next morning.

    I decided to call the Emergency Line to see if they would send mental health first but they sent the cops anyway. Our local cops are really delicate with mental patients so they got her back to her boyfriend and left the homeowner to cleanup.