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   6     <title>Petter Reinholdtsen: Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</title>
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  14  <h1>
  15      <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/">Petter Reinholdtsen</a>
  16
  17  </h1>
  18
  19 </div>
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  22     <div class="entry">
  23       <div class="title">Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?</div>
  24       <div class="date"> 3rd October 2012</div>
  25       <div class="body"><p>I just read the blog post from Tim Retout
  26 <a href="http://retout.co.uk/blog/2012/10/02/the-library-challenge">about
  27 the computer science book collection available in his local
  28 library</a>, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about
  29 computer books becoming obsolete so soon.  That is part of the reason
  30 why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine
  31 too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people
  32 buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future
  33 computer classic from trash.  And they need to know which one will
  34 become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the
  35 recently published books.</p>
  36
  37 <p>During my university years, I worked for a while at the university
  38 library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer
  39 related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not
  40 know enough about computers to make a good educated guess.  Once, just
  41 before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and
  42 I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the
  43 university book store, for the library to buy for their collection.  I
  44 had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading,
  45 and the books I knew were classics (like most of the
  46 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Richard_Stevens">Stevens
  47 collection</a>).  I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie
  48 documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of
  49 products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class.
  50 I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books
  51 for the library that evening.</p>
  52
  53 <p>The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is
  54 going to know that for example
  55 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Practice_of_Programming">The
  56 Practice of Programming</a> is a must-have in any computer library,
  57 and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy.
  58 Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving
  59 the suggestions for books to get?  I know they would love to hear from
  60 you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite
  61 book right away.</p>
  62 </div>
  63
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