Ruby class instance variables and inheritance

Another solution would be to use the inherited hook:

class LibraryItem < Object
  class << self
    attr_accessor :attributes
    def inherit_attributes(attrs)
      @attributes ||= []
      @attributes.concat attrs
    end

    def inherited(sublass)
      sublass.inherit_attributes(@attributes)
    end
  end
  @attributes = ['title', 'authors', 'location',]
end

class LibraryBook < LibraryItem
  @attributes.push('ISBN', 'pages')
end

Since you mention that the attributes are "fixed" and "unchanging", I am assuming that you mean that you will never change their value once the object is created. In that case, something like the following should work:

class Foo
    ATTRS = ['title', 'authors', 'location']
    def attributes
        ATTRS
    end
end

class Bar < Foo
    ATTRS = ['ISBN', 'pages']
    def attributes
        super + ATTRS
    end
end

You are manually implementing a reader method (instead of letting attr_accessor create it for you) that disguises the internal name of the array. In your subclass, you simply call the ancestor class' reader function, tack on the additional fields associated with the child class, and return that to the caller. To the user, this appears like a read-only member variable named attributes that has additional values in the sub-class.