Massive book prong cleaning… Getting rid of 80% of my books. vine.co/v/bJha7EMZa5D
— John Saddington (@saddington) January 27, 2013
Auto-complete fail on that tweet!
We’re doing some massive “spring” cleaning with our library reducing our total book county by hundreds. We estimated that we’re getting rid of at least 300 books, but that’s just looking at the piles. It could be more.
Most of these books are from my studies for my two graduate degrees that I completed late last year that I feel I will no longer require at this time. I had hoped to hold onto most of them for some doctoral work but my wife and I agreed that if I need them then I can get them again.
It’s time we pared things down and clean out a lot that we simply do not need.
There are things in all of our lives that are simply excessive and without much worth or merit. We all know how they got there but we have a hard time coming up with reasons why they should stay.
Old books are easy to make a judgement call on – other things like toxic relationships, our current employment, or even our so-called hobbies can be more difficult to remove. It’s not that some of these things are bad (except toxic relationships, of course) but the point is that books are easy in comparison to the much larger decisions that we have to make so that positive momentum and progress can be made in the right direction.
It’s easy to part with some things and very difficult with others. We’re starting easy with books and we, as a family, are preparing for the much harder.
I’d love a service where I could turn in my books and get them digitally!
If I show this post to my wife, she’ll start throwing out my books within the hour
Well, you could always scan the pages one-by-one as PDF files, then merge them all…
I got rid of practically all my books a few weeks ago. Anything of value I sold to Amazon and the rest given away. Gave me some mula for my delivery subscriptions…
I also rent all my textbooks as ebooks now.
E-books are generally cheaper, but renting hard copies can still be the cheaper route sometimes. Just depends on what services you go through.
Justin,
You’re right on that. This term, I actually “bought” no ebooks. They’re all rentals, which cut me an additional $10 to $15 each. I’m really diggin’ the ability to rent an ebook, since I haven’t used any of the texts past the term thus far. What would be $100 in print is about $75 to by digital, and I’m paying about $20 to rent as an ebook.
I think I’m on the same path as you John. One day, I too will be having a “sell them all” spring cleaning.
Any chances of you creating an inventory and letting us know how we could buy them from you?
Before we moved from the Bay Area to San Diego two years ago, we spent a year getting rid of 2000 of my books. We gave them to friends, donated them, sold some, and (sadly) in the end, still had to throw about 100 away. But it was worth it to limit how many we brought down to 400. Now I’m trying to get it down to 100. Thankfully many of my grad books were able to be purchased digitally the first time. I want the books I really use/keep to be digital and accesible from anywhere.
Good for you. That’s a tough job. Kindle is changing the way I live, though. One massive sweep every 5 years usually does it. (I always hang onto the same ones.)
I know that feeling to well.. I am about to move from the England to America.. I made the decision to sell everything.. (Apart from essential tech, I need that) Like you I figured if I needed it I’d buy it again..
How are you liking the Vine app? I will admit your video is good and all, but kind of make me dizzy if I watch for to long.
Nice that you can unload and clear out some space though.