• @Zannsolo
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    4 months ago

    So she stole $60000 from the months of hard working publishers and $122 from authors

    • stebo
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      654 months ago

      No, $122 from the printing factory and 13¢ from the authors.

      • @WhatYouNeed
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        44 months ago

        $3 from the printing factory, 13¢ from the author and $118 from the fucken publisher

  • @filister
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    664 months ago

    Regarding libraries, this is such a socialist idea, that enriches society and educates the people. I wonder why no one thought to defund them, because think of the lost profits for companies like Amazon, etc. /s

    • @madcaesar
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      484 months ago

      Republicans absolutely have tried and are trying to defund librairies.

      • Flying SquidOP
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        254 months ago

        And have succeeded. In the stupidest ways. I can’t find the article since there are so many fucking attempts, but there was one where they got rid of the library’s funding in the only public room in town big enough to hold the meeting on getting rid of the library’s funding: the library’s meeting room.

  • @brygphilomena
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    664 months ago

    Does this include any “library of things?” Because at my library I can check tools, thermal image cameras, tables, board games and all sorts of other things.

    • @dodos
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      174 months ago

      Where are you where you have those options? Id love to be able to checkout tools at the library.

      • @[email protected]
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        64 months ago

        Not poster but northeast US in the more populated areas seem to have better stocked libraries. Mine has music, movies, board games, and a whole bunch of random equipment for stuff like research or cooking or building. Microscopes and knitting sets and pasta makers, construction equipment etc.

        • Flying SquidOP
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          24 months ago

          This library is in Indiana and still has one. My local one, also in Indiana, has one too. They both have maker spaces as well. The one here has free large format printing, 3D printing, sewing machines… some other things too that escape me now.

      • fmstrat
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        54 months ago

        This is pretty common in most blue states.

      • @brygphilomena
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        34 months ago

        Illinois, in a suburb northwest of Chicago.

        They have so much to borrow totally free. So many people think of libraries as just books, but they often are so much more.

    • @[email protected]
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      64 months ago

      I’ve been to libraries where you can borrow music CDs, movie DvDs, and even games such as Nintendo Switch cartridges. My local library does DvDs but not the other stuff.

    • Flying SquidOP
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      54 months ago

      I don’t know whether she takes advantage of them, but that library definitely has a LoT.

  • @fne8w2ah
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    4 months ago

    Anyone who has ever suggested defunding or closing libraries should be hanged at the stake.

  • @Eheran
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    184 months ago

    How much money is she spending that just the savings add up to 60’000? Or is that just an error and that’s the joke?

      • @[email protected]
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        -384 months ago

        But she wouldn’t have?

        Before Netflix I wasn’t buying hundreds of DVDs per year. It doesn’t make sense to claim that use of a service, even a free one, constitutes “savings” based on hypothetical behavior where you would have bought all the content individually at list price.

          • @Lost_My_Mind
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            214 months ago

            sigh

            Nobody does “talk to the hand” anymore. Where did we as a society lose the confidence to shove our hand into someones face, and tell them to shut it?

            • SatansMaggotyCumFart
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              34 months ago

              It’s highly offensive to those without hands, can you please stop being so ableist?

                • @Zorque
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                  94 months ago

                  Maybe they didn’t get wooshed, they just thought it was a dumb joke.

        • @Soup
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          244 months ago

          That’s the thing, in a lot of cases you’d simply go without whether you wanted to or not. They use “savings” to illustrate how much it would have cost to buy all those books on their own, that’s it. They clearly wanted to read those books but they wouldn’t be able to afford them without a library. If they had the money to spend on them I’m sure they would have but they didn’t and that’s literally the whole point.

          Not being able to afford something and not wanting that something are different and calling this “savings” is fine and makes complete sense.

          Example: I’ve seen 1085 episodes of One Piece. Without Crunchyroll(and it’s low fees, compared to buying box sets I’d never rewatch) I’d never have been able to see all that content. I would have wanted to, but I couldn’t.

          Or to mirror your own words more: Before Crunchyroll I never would have seen it as without the service to offer these savings I’d be shit out of luck.

                • @PlasticExistence
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                  44 months ago

                  The first time was fun because I had a good manager and Netflix was still seen by them as the upstart and not a real competitor.

                  A couple of years later and things at a different location under a coke head manager made for a very different experience.

        • @[email protected]
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          74 months ago

          This person has read 40 books. They must love those books so much that they would have definitely bought them if this library didn’t exist. It’s not saving per se, but it’s money that could have been spent. They got the books they love and they didn’t spend the money. Win win, right?

          • @[email protected]
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            54 months ago

            Why does everyone assume books equals novels. The books loaned might have been text books or even journals.

          • @SchmidtGenetics
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            4 months ago

            They wouldn’t have spent 60k on books over that time, they’ve only saved that much because the books were free. If they had to pay for the books they would have been more selective and less liberal in the amount.

            Spending $150 a week is just a lot of money to spend on books, it’s only that much because of the free price tag, so it’s extremely disingenuous to use that amount as people wouldn’t realistically spend that.

            • Rhynoplaz
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              114 months ago

              Yeah, libraries are so deceitful! It’s all a big conspiracy to promote literacy and give people books that they don’t even need!!! I can’t believe they’re forcing us to take advantage of them like this!

              • @SchmidtGenetics
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                4 months ago

                A more realistic metric would be used books (also reflects the quality of all but brand new fresh books which are a rarity obviously), but you can’t quantify that price, so yes using new is disingenuous, but go off on a rant I guess? I think it’s a great idea, but let’s not kid ourselves that people would actually be spending that amount on books. It’s great for a feel good story though, I’ll give you that.

                • Flying SquidOP
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                  14 months ago

                  A more realistic metric would be used books

                  Do used bookstores all charge the same prices these days?

        • @lunarul
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          54 months ago

          I prefer to buy books to own. But books are expensive, so if a particular book feels like it’s not something worth the money to keep, I just borrow it from the library instead. That’s literally money saved for me. Yeah, you could argue that if the library wouldn’t have been an option then maybe I wouldn’t have bought the book at all, so no difference there, but it’s still the difference between reading the book for free or not reading the book at all.

    • @[email protected]
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      384 months ago

      My partner is in the Lit world and you drastically underestimate how much some people can read. If they are an avid reader and a long-standing member I can see it. Especially If they’re using the retail price to calculate that it adds up quick. hardcovers can easily be $40-60.

      • Flying SquidOP
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        164 months ago

        She also has a kid and has been going with the kid to the library since he was born to check out a bunch of books every week. He’s in grade school now… I want to say he’s 10?

        • @bisby
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          174 months ago

          $6996.99 per year is $134.56 per week. If you get 5 books per week, that’s $26.91 per book. Given the picture includes a single book costing $19.95, that feels very reasonable. Maybe it’s 6 books a week, maybe some books are more expensive.

          That’s a very consistent habit though.

          • Flying SquidOP
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            104 months ago

            They literally go every week and she and her husband and her kid all use it, so it would add up.

          • @lunarul
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            54 months ago

            I go to the library every week with my kids. We usually have 20-30 books checked out at a time. 5 books per week is nothing for a whole family.

        • @[email protected]
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          54 months ago

          Yeah that’s definitely where that amount is coming from if it’s been well over a decade. Books are actually really fricken expensive!

          • Flying SquidOP
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            74 months ago

            Especially children’s books in terms of a per-page ratio. You check out 10 children’s books, because your kid will get through them all in a few days, that could be $200 worth of books.

            • @[email protected]
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              54 months ago

              With children’s books most of the page count will be in illustrations. You’ll go through them very quickly.

      • @chemical_cutthroat
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        74 months ago

        I can go through 4 or more books a week depending on their length. I read a fuck ton. Using the Libby app to have books sent to my kindle automatically has really changed my life. Being able to just grab my kindle at any moment, read for 15 minutes while I wait for something, as well as an hour or two at the end of the night. It adds up quickly. I will say that I read a lot of “lighter” fare, so I can breeze through without much issue. If I get into something more heavy or some dense non-fiction it will slow down considerably.

        • Flying SquidOP
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          34 months ago

          I don’t know exactly what she reads, but I am guessing it’s also lighter fare, leaning on sci-fi/fantasy. Not that she isn’t smart, she just is (like me) someone who prefers to read for the enjoyment of the story rather than the challenge.

          • @chemical_cutthroat
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            24 months ago

            Oh for sure. I love a heavy read when I have time time to enjoy it, but I can’t eat 10lbs of beef for every meal. Sometimes I want a berry smoothie.

            • Flying SquidOP
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              44 months ago

              I used to love heavy reads, but the older I get the more it just wears me out. I just don’t have the patience for such things anymore.

        • @[email protected]
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          34 months ago

          Yeah she easily reads into the 200+ range which is about the same pace as you. A lot her non-work related books end up being audiobooks though. I personally need to feel paper in my hands or I have trouble focusing, but I also almost exclusively read high fantasy for fiction and philosophy for non-fiction. I’m lucky to finish half a dozen books a year on a good year!

          • @chemical_cutthroat
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            44 months ago

            I work in a kitchen, most of the time by myself, so I throw an audio book on at double speed and I can crank through a 16 hour book in one shift. It helps to lighten the mental load of the work, especially during slower times where I get fidgety. I do understand the need for paper, I just don’t have the room for it. If there is a book that is important to me, then I’ll grab a physical copy, but if it’s some random sci-fi that I’m just testing out, I’m leaning hard into that Libby app to see if I’ll actually enjoy it.

            • @[email protected]
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              94 months ago

              I’m always jealous of people who can listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I genuinely can’t listen to them and do something else at the same time so I have to sit twiddling my thumbs the entire time and get antsy. If I try listen and maybe do the dishes or something, I’ll blink and have no idea what’s been said for the past 15 minutes and have to go back anyway. It kind of sucks.

              • @chemical_cutthroat
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                44 months ago

                I’ve found that I have the most success with stuff I know fairly well. I’ll listen to Tolkien, Asimov, or King because I’ve read the books 10 times and if I miss a bit, I still know what is going on.

              • @beerclue
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                44 months ago

                Same here. But with eBooks too. Sometimes my brain drifts for a while and I reread the same paragraph 5 times. So what I do is “double-dip”. I listen to and read the ebook at the same time. This way my brain has no chance of escaping. This has also helped me with my English; oh, so that’s how you pronounce albeit?

                • @[email protected]
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                  24 months ago

                  Hello fellow ADHD adult! I’ve heard the advice about using the double medium before but never given it a shot. Honestly it would probably work great, but I’ve just never committed to it.

  • @Snooks
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    144 months ago

    She must read a book a day or only borrow gold plated books. 7k past year? If a book cost 20 dollars thats 350 books!

    • @ChexMax
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      164 months ago

      Libraries also have movies and games!

      Also a lot of libraries have other stuff you can check out! Tools, sewing machine, printer, photo scanner etc!

      We scanned hundreds of old photos in minutes with the thousand dollar value equipment at our library totally for free! It was really cool! Ours has all kinds of equipment for converting old media to digital.

      Plus these huge satellite maps of our city from the past, it’s like a 3.5’x3ft book of aerial photos. Idk what you’d need that for, but it was fun to look through them!

    • @Alpha71
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      114 months ago

      Going by Amazon, hardcover averages $26.75 and paperback is $22.30

    • @[email protected]
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      44 months ago

      It seems feasible if you don’t imagine they’re all big novels. A lot of nonfiction you might borrow several of in one visit and not read front to back. Think recipe books, handicrafts, anything along those lines. Could also be smaller things like children’s books, poetry collections, etc., or some of the books were unusually expensive.

  • FartsWithAnAccent
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    104 months ago

    Too many people sleep on libraries, they have all sorts of shit from music to movies on top of all the books, magazines, microfiche, etc.

    • @[email protected]
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      34 months ago

      Just got a library card a few months ago. Had one when I was a kid and forgot how great it was. Not only do you get access to a huge amount of books, music, magazines, they also have ebooks. I don’t even have to leave the house to get something to read. Just download it on my epaper reader. Plus: never again late fees because the license just expires after the rental time is over.

  • @bi_tux
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    104 months ago

    I also don’t pay for books, arrrr

    • 🦄🦄🦄
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      34 months ago

      Do you buy a copy when you find that you actually liked the book you pirated?

      • GHiLA
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        4 months ago

        I literally send authors the average cost of money for their book to their patreon with notes telling them I would’ve paid their publisher if I could’ve gotten a DRM-free .epub after enjoying the copy I got on zlib.

      • @bi_tux
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        54 months ago

        if I can afford it, yeah

  • Rufus Q. Bodine III
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    84 months ago

    I’m more impressed with all the shelf space she saved by returning those physical books.

  • @A_Random_Idiot
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    64 months ago

    so what you’re saying is the library IS tracking everything she reads conspiracy music intensifies

  • @Psythik
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    4 months ago

    Wait, not every library does this?

    Regardless they mildly bother me because they use the MSRP from when the books were new, not the actual price people pay for used books (which is what library books are).