# What % of library books are/have never been checked out? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 11, 2018, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723 "2018-07-11T16:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/21 "2018-07-11T23:00:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard of PhD candidates (who will be, as is the custom, donating a copy of their thesis to the university library) slipping a $20 bill into the pages of the thesis, and then every so often checking to see if anyone’s opened it and found the money. . . . Wouldn’t a $1 bill work just as well? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/22 "2018-07-11T23:24:19Z")
Probably, but I think that the idea is that the writer also wants to reward the reader. I have a classmate who said he was planning on doing it with multiple Benjamins, but then again, that guy just liked showing off how wealthy his family was. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/23 "2018-07-12T00:11:00Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > Wouldn’t a $1 bill work just as well? Chronos is just showing his youth. There were reports of $1 bills in theses at MIT. I never found any, but I did see a footnote in one saying that if you found the money please contact the author and gave an address. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/24 "2018-07-12T00:31:32Z")
Retired university librarian here; I spent most of my career in a library with about 2 million volumes. We only withdrew books when they had deteriorated beyond repair, or when we were culling duplicate copies. Sometimes I would wander the stacks and pull books off the shelf at random to see when they had last been checked out. We stopped stamping due dates in books in the mid-2000s, so recent checkouts wouldn’t have appeared there (the circulation system records that information now), but the date due slips were still quite interesting. Yes, I did occasionally find books that had apparently never been taken out of the building, but this was surprisingly rare. Often I’d notice a book on some incredibly narrow or obscure topic (obscure to me, anyway) and find that it had gotten a lot of use. What I found particularly intriguing was finding a book that had been used frequently and heavily in the past, but hardly at all in recent decades. Books seem to have a half-life, like radioactive materials. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/25 "2018-07-12T01:08:36Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > What I found particularly intriguing was finding a book that had been used frequently and heavily in the past, but hardly at all in recent decades. Books seem to have a half-life, like radioactive materials. Bagust claims that simple exponential decay is a good model for this. Exactly like radioactive decay. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/26 "2018-07-12T03:22:15Z")
When my former university library decided to down-size by culling, rather than resorting to deeper storage, they employed a ‘dust test’ to see if older books were being taken off the shelves and looked at in-house, even though they wouldnt show up as being borrowed. And when I began my doctorate, it was precisely these once dusty, no longer existent books that i wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/27 "2018-07-12T04:04:15Z")
I also loved shelf-roaming, and regret the transfer of so much material to offsite or automated storage. Back when I had visiting privileges at the University of Chicago’s library, on one visit I noticed that the current issue periodicals all had round stickers that had been used to seal them shut, much like junk mail now uses. A note on the shelves said to feel free to unseal the journals, that they were merely checking to see which were regularly read. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/28 "2018-07-12T04:18:18Z")
The differing statistics and various stories show that different libraries have different purposes and different readers. And different types of books, too - some old books are valuable references, some old books are valuable antiques, some are curiosities, and some are just trash. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/29 "2018-07-12T05:20:11Z")
When I was doing research for my masters’ dissertation, the University law library had several books from the 19th century which as far as I could tell, had not been opened in decades, one of them even had a date written, 1863 IIRC. The Head Librarian had a policy whereby he would photocopy ancient texts and then issue them for general use, keeping the original safe. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/30 "2018-07-12T07:22:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > University libraries are designed for research. They need to keep older books so that they can be accessed. Their very age can be important in understand what knowledge and attitudes existed in earlier decades. . . Yes, and the guiding principle is that you cannot predict what book will be necessary for some future research, so if possible, keep as many books as your space permits. > [@erysichthon](#): > > Retired university librarian here; I spent most of my career in a library with about 2 million volumes. We only withdrew books when they had deteriorated beyond repair, or when we were culling duplicate copies. . . What I found particularly intriguing was finding a book that had been used frequently and heavily in the past, but hardly at all in recent decades. Books seem to have a half-life, like radioactive materials. Did your library happen to have a Public Law 480 collection? I worked in the Berkeley main stacks, and quickly noticed that about a quarter of one tier (or floor) was taken up entirely by books from India. These all were under the call number X480, and they included just about any publication you can imagine–even things like trashy comic books, obscure pamphlet PSA-type things, etc. Finally I asked why the call number for this section was X480, and was told that because of Public Law 480 (the “Food for Peace Act”), certain university libraries were designated to receive just about EVERY publication from a designated country involved with that aid program, (as a kind of payment, I think), and Berkeley’s was India. They arbitrarily used X-480 in the header, instead of a regular LoC call number to indicate that those books belong in that area, and then it was just the date of publication, and maybe some letter from the beginning of the title. So this huge collection of books–every damn book published in India–was not indexed in the subject catalog, which meant that it just sat there, rarely accessed, because only someone who really knew what to look for would find them. It was bibliographic jungle. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I used to love wandering through the open stacks in college and just picking up random books to look at. And when I needed to do research, going to the proper shelf and looking at all the books filed next to one another almost always gave me information I needed and wouldn’t have found by naming individual books. Yeah–the shelf itself becomes an epistemological key. (That is, if the books have actually been re-shelved correctly…) ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/31 "2018-07-12T16:31:28Z")
When I entered high school, I had been subscribing to _Fantasy & Science Fiction_ for some time and enjoying Isaac Asimov’s monthly science columns the whole time. Perusing the school library’s card catalog, I found he had non-fiction entries, most of them collections of those columns and other essays. On getting to [_Only a Trillion_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Trillion), his first such collection, mine was the first check-out date stamped onto the slip in the front of the book, so if the library had acquired it when it was first published, it had languished on the shelves for six years. I checked that book out every year thereafter, and when I graduated, mine were the only four stamps in the book. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/32 "2018-07-12T16:57:10Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > (That is, if the books have actually been re-shelved correctly…) My first job, at 15, was as a library page. One of the main duties of pages was shelf-reading. You’d be assigned x number of bookcases and were supposed to check that every book on them was in the proper place and proper order. I still shelf-read every time I go to a library or bookstore. A misplaced book is a lost book, almost as bad as if it were stolen. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/33 "2018-07-12T22:07:30Z")
I do that compulsively, too, and I’ve never even been paid for it. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/34 "2018-07-13T05:15:04Z")
I would get that assignment, too, on a rotating basis. At Doe, it was called “fine ordering.” You were given only an hour at a time, because apparently it could make one’s mind go numb, though that never happened to me. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/35 "2018-07-13T05:54:33Z")
Ah, shelf reading. An exercise in search and rescue. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/36 "2018-07-13T14:21:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’ve heard of PhD candidates (who will be, as is the custom, donating a copy of their thesis to the university library) slipping a $20 bill into the pages of the thesis, and then every so often checking to see if anyone’s opened it and found the money. > > Of course, nowadays, the paper copy of a thesis is just a formality, since anyone who has any interest in it will be reading an electronic copy. For the last ten years I have been acting as chair of PhD final examination committees (at McGill it is called pro-dean–I guess I am standing in for the graduate dean) and in that time I have not seen one paper thesis. A couple years ago, I went to the library to look at an older thesis and they told me they had all been scanned and the paper copies were no available. I didn’t ask, but I assume no paper copy is ever made now. But everything about the thesis–examiner reports, thesis, even the final exam report–is electronic only. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/37 "2018-07-13T14:26:46Z")
Just an anecdote: when I was in high school in the late 80s, I was browsing through the library shelves with a couple of friends, and we noticed that a lot of the books had a healthy layer of dust on top of them. We decided to have a contest to find the book that hadn’t been checked out in the longest time (and thus the dustiest). I should note that I went to St. Michael’s High School, which is one of the oldest still-in-existence high schools in America. I won with a book that as I recall was just titled “Audubon”. The signature card indicated that the last time it had been checked out was in 1957. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/38 "2018-07-13T14:27:04Z")
In Pat Conroy’s _The Lords of Discipline_, two cadets at a military academy surreptitiously communicate by notes they leave for each other in a very old book which has never been checked out of the academy’s library. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > …I used to love wandering through the open stacks in college and just picking up random books to look at. And when I needed to do research, going to the proper shelf and looking at all the books filed next to one another almost always gave me information I needed and wouldn’t have found by naming individual books. My brother! > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > …A misplaced book is a lost book, almost as bad as if it were stolen. In Susanna Clarke’s _Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell_, set in an alternate England where magic exists, there is an ancient crime still on the books: “book murder” - the purposeful destruction of a book of magic. It was treated the same as the murder of a human being. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/39 "2018-07-13T14:45:10Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > When I entered high school, I had been subscribing to _Fantasy & Science Fiction_ for some time and enjoying Isaac Asimov’s monthly science columns the whole time. Perusing the school library’s card catalog, I found he had non-fiction entries, most of them collections of those columns and other essays. On getting to [_Only a Trillion_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Trillion), his first such collection, mine was the first check-out date stamped onto the slip in the front of the book, so if the library had acquired it when it was first published, it had languished on the shelves for six years. I checked that book out every year thereafter, and when I graduated, mine were the only four stamps in the book. I always loved his F&SF science essays, and I have been amassing my personal collection of those nonfiction collections. I see seven of them on the shelf next to my computer, all scruffy old library books from various libraries across the country, complete with the little pocket inside for the card. I just grabbed my copy of “Adding a Dimension” and see that it arrived at Niagara University Library in 1967 and was checked out 9 times between 1970 and 1984. I don’t see “Only a Trillion” in my collection so I need to find that one. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2018, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723/40 "2018-07-13T15:30:46Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > I don’t see “Only a Trillion” in my collection so I need to find that one. Well, if you’re strictly collecting only his F&SF essays, OaT contains none as it was published in 1958, before his run began in that mag. Most are from _Astounding_. > [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Just an anecdote: when I was in high school in the late 80s, I was browsing through the library shelves with a couple of friends, and we noticed that a lot of the books had a healthy layer of dust on top of them. We were having our model railroad club’s monthly meeting at a member’s home and another fellow and I were looking at our host’s shelf o’ books in the living room (mostly railroad books, naturally). Finding an interesting one I pulled it off the shelf and without even thinking about blew sharply along the top edge to get the dust off. Seeing the guy next to me smiling I commented, “Bachelor library; I know 'cause I own one myself.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-of-library-books-are-have-never-been-checked-out/817723.md?page=3)