Human misbehavior

[vakkotaur]

A day or two ago there was a radio interview with an author who had risen out of poverty by his effort and writing. This was not what struck me. Effort will accomplish that sort of thing. What struck me was when he described his early affinity for reading he said something about stealing books from a library. I know it happens, but it has has always puzzled me a bit. There might be some market value (especially for rare books) but this was just to read. A strange mindset, that. The whole purpose of a library is allow the reading of books. Almost all of the libraries I've encountered are "free libraries." That is, you go in, and with not much hassle, get a card and can borrow stuff. The card itself tends to be free. The borrowing is free. All you have to do is promise to bring an item back on or before a certain day. What's more, if you bring a borrowed item back on or before the specified day, you can often renew the withdrawal and borrow that item for another week or two! The only time there is a charge is if the borrowed item is not returned, not returned on time, or damaged. And often, the late fee is even waived if it has been only a day or two.

Stealing books from a library makes no sense to me. What other place allows you, nay, encourages you to borrow what it has and asks only that you bring it back by a certain day? It could be said that libraries are the one great communistic or socialistic institution in this country. Public funds and private philanthropy keep libraries going, for the benefit of anyone who cares to use them. About the only limit might be one of location, and interlibrary loaning goes quite a way to eliminate even that barrier. And yet people steal books from libraries. Not just occasionally, but often enough to make it worth the money to install anti-theft devices. Ponder that. Money that could have been spent on the collection, on heating or cooling, on lighting, on the librarians themselves - but instead goes to buy and run an anti-theft system for a place that will freely lend what it has.

Need proof that communism would never work? Or anarchy, or any system utterly and completely dependent on all people being decent would fail? Here it is: library theft.