[Noisebridge-discuss] Noisebridge Lending Library?

jim jim at well.com
Sun Feb 7 17:31:11 UTC 2010



   i believe that everyone of us can take a book home 
and forget to return it ever. the books most likely 
to be taken home will be the best books. a permissive 
policy (agreed shared value) puts the library itself 
at risk--the value of the library to the community 
is largely in the value of its best books. as the best 
books disappear, the value of the library is much 
decreased. ("best" books == books that are highly 
appealing for whatever reason.) 
   part of the value of the library is not just the 
fact that very interesting and/or informative books 
are available, but that the library attracts people
to the community. a less valuable library has reduced 
attractive power. 
   and there's the issue of the donors' intentions. 
a group that dispenses or its donated resources in a 
manner that clearly discounts the donors' intensions 
is likely to have reduced appeal to prospective donors. 
i think any donors who see a wanton disposal of their 
donations will feel badly. miloh's view that to some 
degree donors should let go of their sense of 
ownership is right but does not cover the whole truth, 
in my view. 

   i think ungoverned use of books in the library is 
non-excellent to a significant degree. i'm hoping the 
case i'm trying to make is true and therefore 'sticks". 
   so far the idea of a cash deposit and a signout 
system makes some sense to me. 
   a private, personal question: to what degree is 
your wish to consume some "non-consumable" childishly 
indulgent? (not meaning anyone in particular, but 
each of us, including me.)



On Sun, 2010-02-07 at 01:16 -0800, Sai Emrys wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 9:17 PM, Will Sargent <will.sargent at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>   People who donate things to noisebridge do so with
> >> some sense of mission, and donors are part of the
> >> noisebridge community whether or not they are members.
> >> it is not excellent to disregard the intentions of
> >> donors: at least we should understand the intent of the
> >> donation before co-opting stuff for personal purposes.
> >
> > Not quite sure I understand this; is there a license attached to donations?
> 
> No. However, there is a sort of flag attached to any resource that
> goes into a nonprofit. Once something is donated to a nonprofit, it
> may not unduly profit any non-profit.
> 
> In this context, what that means is that books donated to NB cannot be
> just given to individuals, because then the individuals (who are not
> nonprofits) would be profiting from it. They can be *sold* at fair
> market value, though.
> 
> There is an arguable exception, which is that charities are allowed to
> just give stuff to the group of people that they service. But there're
> complications there - demonstrating need, showing that you're not just
> using it to funnel money to your friends, well-defining the target
> group, etc. Probably not an area NB wants to touch, more because it's
> a PITA than because it's not possible.
> 
> tl;dr: It's a tax thing.
> 
> 
> On-topic: FWIW, I've borrowed some of the books on the shelf for a
> week or two at a time, but always returned them. I think that this is
> reasonable use, since one can't really read them while in the space
> (it's distracting and there isn't enough time). I also think it would
> be not-nice to just take it, and that accidentally taking it and
> forgetting to return it is a risk. I don't know how to
> mitigate/balance these though.
> 
> - Sai
> 




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