Creatrope

Sacrosanct! How can you get rid of books?

Easy: just use strong boxes! (paraphrase of a terrible joke – you’ll have to find the ‘original’ yourself)

It’s been said that Umberto Eco, the author, had a vast library and he was annoyed when people asked “how many books he had read.”. For him, the importance of a library was not in the books he had read, it was the in th books he hadn’t read – the knowledge he had yet to access, but could if need be.

How many books do you need? How many books do you want?

If you’re like me, the answer is: a lot.

Approximately two years ago, with book shelves in three different rooms, I decided I had all the books I’d ever have. Not all the books I’d ever own or read. See where I’m going with this? There’s another event in my life that triggered this manifesto, but that’s a story for another day.

The Rule: If a new box of books came in, another box-full had to go out. This was for the whole family. That worked well for a while, but still the total volume of books felt… inappropriately high.

I found virtually all of my ‘new’ reading came from online sources or trips to the library, with an occasional new ordered books. My trips to my personal (extensive) library were more limited, perhaps for a quick read to fall asleep.

So I started selectively purging the book collection. My goal was to reduce the space, yet keep the essential quality of enjoyment of my collection.

Interestingly, my approach to trimming the collection was category related:

Book Categories

Already Read Fiction I maintained an extensive fiction collection, both read and unread. There were so many fiction books I wanted to read, and I reread books so rarely (perhaps several dozen in my life), why keep the paperback fiction I’d already read? I kept a few favorites, and then grabbed armful after armful for the donation box.

Unread Fiction I generally kept most of these. I tried to be honest with myself whether I thought there was a fair chance I’d ever read it – on the handful that the answer was a definitely no, I removed them.

Reference/General Tough call here. Some of these had a natural beauty, they were as much books as art. I kept those. But the 1967 Guinness Book of Records? Gross simplification: if you’re generally satisfied with the quality of the reference information on the Internet for the area in question, and ‘portability’ is not an issue, toss it. By portability, I mean in the bathtub, while camping, etc. (Ebooks, of course, change this dynamic dramatically, but that’s a topic for another day). I have specific recommendations on certain subcategories of reference below.

Oversize/Awkward Books, All Categories I think publishers think a book has extra cache or charm if it’s awkwardly sized. They are a pain to store. Per the methodology I keep for board games, these books need to be worth more to me then their peers to be worth holding.

Film/TV Guides Please don’t tell me that you’ve haven’t discovered the Internet Movie Database yet? As of January 2006, it’s the authority for television as well. Toss the guides. Film and TV is a living medium, don’t use a dead tree to keep track of it!

Anything With Address/Phone Information Alumni yearbooks, old phone books, etc are almost always worth purging. Save your graduation yearbook of course.

Older Technology IT-related books from before 2000 got close scrutiny. I saved a few of my favorites (and ones where I had my name in them) and off the rest went. I did check to see whether they were valuable first on Amazon. A few were.

Craft/Hobby I liked having these books around so I kept most of them. For books that are not worth keeping on their artistic/collectible merits alone, I recommend the following strategy: page through the book and see that there’s a least of handful of projects that you’d actually want to build/make, if you had the time. There were several where not a single project interested me. Off they go!

Kids Education I’ve bought a lot of these over the years and my child has outgrown them. Many were age-graded. I gave away everything less than his current age. This was also an opportunity to give away ‘duplicates’ of work-books filled with nearly identical problems.

Kids Fiction I have not encouraged my child to re-read fiction and he doesn’t seem to have a natural inclination to do so. We has a large collection, so once a book is finished, it goes to charity where some other child can enjoy it.

Kids and Family ‘Classics’ There are some books that are absolute keepers. Not ‘classics’ in the traditional sense. It’s different for each family: Perhaps Dr. Seuss, The Phantom Tollbooth, etc. They may or may not be re-read, but they are the cornerstone of library. They meet the decluttering rule, Does it make me happy to keep this?. Whether they need to be displayed, or can be stored away, or perhaps even take a more prominent place in the household is a personal decision.

Kids Non-Fiction I kept virtually all of this that was age-appropriate or above. I’m particularly partial to the DK publishing series as bookshelf-space-worthy.

Encyclopedias I’m not sure I even know anybody who knows anybody who still has a physical encyclopedia. I like Wikipedia, but you need to be aware of problematic content in controversial areas. Britannica Online is probably a safer bet for some people.

Humor A select few seemed almost as good given a quick second glance. I kept these. Ones that seemed hilarious the first time that barely got me to crack a smile the second time were tossed. Humor books appeared to lower than their peers for resale. Most of ones I enjoyed the first time through I gave away as gifts.

Manuals Worthy of it’s own topic later – the executive summary – they are nearly all available online – for free!

Magazines Generally not worth the space/weight they take up, I found. There were just a few sets I had that I thought paid their way. After paroling the collectible ones, I purged most of the rest. It was hard to part with the National Geographics, but once they were gone, it was all good.
Assuage your guilt by acquiring them on CD:
* Mad Magazine (whew! I have that one, when did that get rare?)
* National Geographic

Duplicates If the book isn’t collectible, why on earth do you have more than one?

Cookbooks There’s an astonishing amount of recipes online. Why not keep a few of your favorites and eliminate the ones you’ve never used? Stay tuned for a future article on the kitchen computer.

Borrowed Books If you’re done with the book, it’s ‘free space’ by returning them to their rightful owner. You might be interested in checking out BillMonk as a way to track them.

Hardback versus Paperback I had several ‘duplicates’ in both editions. My strategy here was to see if the hardback was substantially more valuable if I suspected it was a collectible. If not (e.g. the prices were similar), I generated tossed the hardback, in favor of the smaller paperback.

Avoid the temptation to purge your spouses collection. That’s a mistake you only make once…

Donating Books

I’ve used the words ‘donation’ and ‘tossing’ liberally here, but it’s a proxy for all the different ways you can get the book to leave the house.

If you’ve got something reasonably
straightforward, selling might be an option – weights and packaging are consistent and it’s not too hard to judge condition. It’s probably easier than you think to get started as well.

Library book sales are nice, because they raise money for an organization you may enjoy. I’ve found myself in a difficult position there, because I’m not fond of the idea of the library making a dollar and the booksellers that mob the event making the extra dollars (essentially performing arbitrage). Other charities such as Goodwill, Salvation Army or Jewish Family Services appear to get nearly ‘full value’ from these gifts. It’s something I need to learn more about to make an educated decision.

Giving the book to friends is always good, if it’s welcome.
By getting a friend to read it you might find new similarities in taste and get some good ones in return. You’ll want to make it clear it’s a gift and you’re not expecting it back.

Local used book stores will buy back some the books, but the market is so efficient now, that I personally do not find this as attractive an option as I did in college. The price they pay, and their newly high level of selectivity makes this less compelling than it used to be.

Why not start a company lending library? (stored at the office, of course!)