Nah, libraries are theft. When you borrow a book from a library and you read it, then you have stolen a book from the publisher. Then you give it back and the next person comes along and reads the same book, stealing even more from the publisher.
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2025
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Your meme has inspired me to renew my library card.
We should all aspire to be the Oceans 11 heist of having a library card.
If you read the book really fast, you can read it multiple times, costing the publisher even more. If you read it enough times, you could even force the publisher into bankruptcy.
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Yup. Tbh, memory in general is theft. You should not be able to have the memory of the book you read unless you keep paying for it. Really should be introducing subscription models for memories of experiences, like reading. Otherwise it’s lobotomy for you.
I can remember it for you wholesale
People with dementia will save so much money.
Best option is to just buy the book and not read it! That's the best option for the publishers.
Nah someone could potentially pick up the book and ~~read~~ steal it. The proper way to respectfully buy a book is to burn the book itself and stick the empty sleeve on display to give the publisher the ad they deserve.
as well as uni classes
Waow based
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Libraries are THE BEST and the last citadel of culture left, I consider librarians Holy Crusaders of Knowledge, and they are the last bastion protecting humanity from intellectual darkness, and the forces that assail the dispersion of truth.
DEUS VULT, librarians! STRENGTH AND HONOR!
*in the US
I have been to libraries in the US and in Europe and in Europe you are supposed to return the book exactly where you got it from if you dont decide to check it out. In the US though I was yelled at for doing that.
Y'all must realize "Europe" isn't one single sort of entity that defines all rules...
In Romania you are required to hand it to a worker to have it checked in and catalogued, you can't just put it back because they need to know if you went over your holding period or not. You're not allowed to keep it forever
I think they're talking about books you've read in the library and decided not to check out, not books you've already checked out, taken home and are now brining back.
Ohhh okay.
Yea we do put those right back, they don't keep track of reading sessions per book or anything like that
This. In Austria most libraries have a self-scan machine where you have to return your books and the librarians will sort the books back in. Part of the reason for that is that they need to check the condition the books were returned in.
I don't know where you've been but most libraries I've seen in Germany have little carts where you put the book you don't want to check out. Our university library even had signs asking to please put books on the carts and not reshelve them yourself.
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Wait, are people checking out books, bringing them home and then... Just putting them on the shelves again???
Not quite. Imagine you're writing a research paper at the library. You take some books off the shelf to study from while you're there. Then, before you leave, don't reshelve the books. It's because the library tracks metrics of which books are being used and if you put it back yourself it doesn't get counted.
For an academic Library, absolutely. But I worked at the local library here, and we didn't track anything unless you checked out the book.
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The librarian at my grad school had a book cart in her house and would not let her husband put a book anywhere but on that cart once he was finished with it. Power move.
Why’s that? Is it just in case you put it in the wrong spot?
Primarily, yes. But also most libraries run a book through the check-in system when they pick it up. This marks in the system when and where the last time a book was touched was, which can be useful if it were to go missing. But mostly it’s so it doesn’t go in the wrong spot.
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In my nearby library, you can even take music and movies out. Old as shit music and movies on CDs and DVDs, but music and movies nevertheless.
In my library they also had games, back then that was a literal game changer for me when I discovered they had Sims 2 expansion packs.
The good old rent CD, rip it, give it back piracy 😁 were fun times
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I need more library memes
Unless the library is tracking book reader stats or you actually check out the book, maybe remember how the classification system works like they were supposed to teach you in school?
Half the time I'm literally standing in front of the shelf perusing the book, it would be dumb to throw it in the book return unless I don't know or can't find the exact position where it came from.
If you know how to properly reshelve the books on your own, you know who you are. Just do it. No one will care nor will anyone bother you if you aren't causing a problem. For everyone else, there is the dump cart.
I see these messages more as being aimed at those who don't even know there is a system, those who do but don't care to learn it, or some other combo of known or unknown unknowns. When books are returned improperly, it creates a moment of unnecessary work at best. At worst, it causes things to become harder for patrons and staff to find, improperly recorded, or "lost" in the system, and those types of mistakes have a tendency to add up/compound with a large enough collection.
It takes way longer to unfuck that kind of mess than to have it be put back correctly in the first place, so let the pros handle it if you're not 100% sure -- there's absolutely no shame in that.
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Idk. I think it's just easier to rely on a specific someone whose job it is to put shit in the proper place than to hope every random person who takes a book off the shelf can put it back in the proper place. Like, I get what you're saying. It isn't a big ask to have people return a book after looking at it. But it's so easy for them to put it in the wrong spot. And once it's on the shelf, it's much harder to notice that it's out of place. It seems counter intuitive, but it's more efficient to simply leave the book out after looking at it
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I suspect that depends.
At least at finnish HelMet libraries, you can just walk in and take any book out of any shelf, and sit down to read it. Once you're done, you put it back in the exact same spot.
If you don't remember where that was, then you can hand it to a librarian to re-shelve. They will check the inventory to see where it should go.
You can actually also do that yourself, since the same system is available for finding any given book currently in the library, but it works just as well for putting something back.
All of the above is allowed without signing up for a library card.
If you want to bring a book home, that's when you go to the checkout, scan your library card, and the barcode on the book. This removes it from current inventory and logs you as the current borrower.
When you bring it back, you scan the book again and leave it on the shelf by the returns scanner. Because the book was removed from the inventory, it wont have a place on a shelf yet. Also, because the inventory of any one library here is everchanging, things may have moved around.
This system also allows you return books to a different library from where you borrowed them. Since the HelMet libraries in the capital city region all interoperate, they share collections, and the location and lending of every individual item is tracked across them all. Across four cities and 66 libraries, and even a couple library buses that visit schools and more remote spots on a schedule.
You can even browse the inventory online. See where copies of what are available, what's available but currently lent out, request something be moved to a library close to you so you can read it, or reserve a spot in line to borrow something popular.
Kinda just gushing about our libraries. If they don't have something, HelMet does intralibrary lending. They will get a certain book or item for you from another library network entirely (even from abroad), lend it out to you, and once you're done, return it back to the providing network.
They do their darndest to make physical media as accessible as the internet, and it's freaking free (for the most part, some things have a fee).
That's how it should work everywhere.
That’s all exactly the same here in the US, except I’ve yet to come across a library that let patrons operate the scanner.
Damn. Over here we have self-service hours.
Library card holders that sign up for it can get into a library building using their library card, outside normal opening hours, when the staff isn't even there.
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i work at a library. please put the books in the spot labeled book return. it may not seem like it but because there are so few people working there just a few people in the library can keep us so busy we will miss the books you put down. also, check if your library has an ebook/audiobook thing like Libby. the wait times can be long but it's still pretty cool if you're into those.
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