/lit/ - Literature

>>12329041
First of all.
>Taking advice from a poo-in-loo.

She also forgets that if we all stop buying books then authors lose a huge revenue source.

I've lived near the main library in two cities (San Francisco and Santa Monica) and in both cases they were basically functioning as homeless shelters. (While I lived near the main library in SF, one person overdosed and died in the bathroom, another person was stabbed there, and another person jumped off one of the upper stories in the main lobby's atrium and went splat on the hard floor below.) I've mostly shifted to using my university's library, though sometimes the public library is more convenient. (The university library is nice though since the loan period is so much longer—3 months compared to 3 weeks. Also interlibrary loans through the university sometimes have loan periods of 11 months to a year.)

For a number of years I was buying a lot of books, but during a period that I was trying to save money I started getting most of my books from the library. Part of me is sad that my collection isn't growing like it used to, but when you start trying to relocate then packing and moving books is a huge pain in the ass. Now I typically only buy books if they're rare or they're a book I know I will want to own. If you're doing research work there isn't much of a point in owning a bunch of books that you'll just use for a project and then never look at again.

>I know the situation is terrible in the US
Which part?

>but here in Sweden the system is great. Your local library might not have the book you’re looking for but most libraries in Stockholm share the same system so you can order it to your local library and you pick it up.

Most of the libraries I'm familiar with in the U.S. (both public libraries and universities libraries) are part of a collaborative system where they'll order a book for you from part of a nationwide network of libraries if the location you're at doesn't have it. The only time I've had this not work is if I'm looking for something incredibly niche such as a print-on-demand or self-published sort of book.

>>6852619
So you haven't progressed philosophically to the point where you realize that pessimism and reality aren't necessarily exclusive of each other?

I realize that you're probably being facetious, but you know, just in case.

Some time ago, on here I believe, I came across a 'law' that someone posted; specifically that whenever an author (typically a journalist) writes an article with a question mark in the title, that the answer to the article title should be considered as "no." This is because if an article title needs to be posed as a question, the author usually hasn't done enough research to write a thorough article. Can anyone recall the proper name for this phenomenon?