the cost of a book

A salty cataloger reminded me (and whenever I get intensive time with tech processing folks I usually leave the meeting awed by their focus -- they turn the volume up on geek so high that I find myself tapping my feet) that a book costs a lot more than its list price, if it's a library book. There's air conditioning, lighting, all the stuff that goes along with housing; there is staff time and knowledge and care. Weeding the items around it... ordering items that encourage its use. The longer the book is with the library, the more its value grows.

Consider a tree. Kew acquires a rare walnut tree that grows in Souther Staffordshire, because they've payed a farmer from Silverdale ₤15 for a cutting he'd managed to pirate and cultivate. Over the course of that tree's lifetime, from sappling to gnarly great-grandad of the garden, over ₤15 per day may be spent on fertilizer, mulch, pruning, mowing -- all that has to go into maintaining a healthy tree. The lifetime cost of the tree is much more than that first 15...

Books aren't simple items. To risk another metaphor, books and their values are fractal. Not just four-dimensional, but not quite 5-dimensional...