The Fate of Books [S. Worthen | Weblog]

You're viewing

owlfish's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

←

→

Here's a followup to the last poll I did, the one on book acquisition.

[Poll #466195]

←

→

There are 28 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I throw books out. Yes, I do. Generally I don't buy them if I don't really want to keep them around, and what I do buy tends to be cheap trade paperbacks that can be recycled when I run out of bookshelf space.

Let the flogging commence.

I find it interesting that throwing out books didn't cross my mind at all when trying to think of all the ways to get rid of books. It says more about my pack-rat book tendencies than your book elimination method, I think. Cheap paperbacks don't keep well in the long run anyways.

[link] [parent] [reply]

You can never have too many bookshelves! I certainly don't have enough.

I know I ought to get rid of some of my books, but the few I'd get rid of would in no way reduce the numbers enough to fit on the bookshelves I have. Even when I stack the books two deep with an extra row sideways on top.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I also adhered the maxim of never-enough-bookshelves, but, it's rather reassuring to know that there are people in the world who DO have enough of them. Sort of like thinking there must be people out there who have never once lost a sock to a washing machine, or whose pens don't vanish.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I wish I were one of these people you speak of. But it is not meant to be. There are also people who always hit the green light, and who always find the parking space. It seems like most people have a small bit of consistent luck allocated to them. ^-^;;

[link] [parent] [reply]

I often leave them with my parents with instructions that they be given to the church or to neighbors, etc. I guess that really is like giving them to friends...

I have cash flow and clutter issues. I try to reduce most of what I read to note cards, computer files, and the like ...

You are very sensible.

It occurs to me I didn't give any options for deleting e-books in this poll. Oh well.

[link] [parent] [reply]

*cries*

I have NO bookshelves right now. We didn't have money to burn on them when we first moved into our tiny apartment, and then we got lazy, and now we'll be moving soon so there's no point buying big furniture we'll just have to move...

*cries some more*

When you get to DC, you should really really really start by going to Ikea. Cheap, very well-made furniture.

[link] [parent] [reply]

i think the second question should have had ticky boxes rather than radio buttons-- i do several of the above when i need to get rid of books. our recycling center has a community exchange area, where people can leave clothing, books, magazines, household goods, etc. that they don't want anymore, and folks can take what they want from it for free. then there's the public library book sale, the red cross booksale, goodwill, friends, fellow students, bookcrossing, and so on. i don't usually bother to try to sell old books to used bookstores, because it never seems to work out satisfactorily.

I considered using ticky boxes, but opted for radio buttons and the same proviso as the acquisition poll - where you dispose of the most books, not all of them. I figured it would give me a better sense for where most books go, at least among this crowd. Otherwise people would be more likely to tick choices they've used on once - but have at least used.

Do public libraries take much in the way of donation books or do they usually sell them for fund-raising?

[link] [parent] [reply]

where you dispose of the most books, not all of them.

yes, i did see that in the question, but for me they're pretty evenly distributed, without a predominant destination.

from what i've been told in library school, the majority of books donated to public libraries tend to go to the book sales (and i believe that most public libraries make that clear in their policy.) unless they've been specifically cultivating a relationship with a donor for a collection that they want, most libraries (public, academic, and other) have no use or room for materials that are just randomly donated.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I wish our community had such a recycling center! I'd be way into that. I need to make room in my house for kids, so have been offloading gradual carloads of stuff. 90% of the donated books have gone to the local library system and 10% have been earmarked for friends.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I tend to keep all the non-fiction I acquire. What I dispose of is fiction, and those that I do decide to part with I donate to the troops via Operation Paperback. I don't really have a whole lot of fiction anyway, as I only keepa small collection of those fiction I can't do without (I am a big patron of libraries). Given that my 4 tall bookcases are full, but I have 3 small ones in reserve, I yet have space for expansion. What I need is more floor space for bookcases!

I sold a bunch via the York Uni small-ads service. I was selling other stuff too at the time.

I left the rest at my parents house (and some at R&C's house) to be rescued at a later date.

Actually I left a dragon tree with someone else too...

What's a dragon tree?

[link] [parent] [reply]

http://www.flowers.org.uk/plants/popups/dragon.htm
shows quite a good picture of one. I like this picture because you can just make out some of the red stripes on the leaves. Mine was a slightly different variety that had dark-green leaves with red edges.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I've sometimes given unwanted books to charity, but there are a lot (e.g. unwanted sff) that I think I really ought to try and sell to a specialist dealer/dealers.

Unwanted books usually go to Goodwill

plus, a bunch of mine went to literacy organisations.

[link] [parent] [reply]

That's a good fate for books.

[link] [parent] [reply]

(deleted comment)

It was on the topic of bookshelves - very relevant.

C. needs us to have a multi-bedroom residence so my accumulations of books can be stored out of the way. Preferably in a dedicated library. Someday...

I've become very prone to book acquisition lately, spurred by the fear that I'll end up living somewhere with a library that doesn't have all the research staples I've come to depend on.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I keep most of them, but occasionally I sell them on amazon or give them to charity shops.

Selling them online! I should have thought of that as an option, since I've had a small handful of friends regularly dispose of unwanted books that way in the past.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I've just done a clearout of some old sci fi and chick lit books - the sci fi will go to the Imperial College sci fi library (if they don't already have copies) - the remainder and the chick lit will go to Oxfam or the "book bank" at the Sutton recycle rcentre.

I hoard. Everything. But particularly books. The last time I ceased owning a book was when I last saw a friend from uni four years back and leant him a book. I've since bought a new copy of it (_Neverwhere_)

October