Purging Books

[drplokta]

We're going to have a major purge on the books, which are taking up a lot of space, especially given that 80% of our reading these days is ebooks.

So I'm drawing up a checklist of reasons to keep books, with the idea being that a book that checks none of the boxes will go. Here's what I've got so far -- anyone got any other reasons for keeping books?

• flickgc or I will probably want to (re-)read it some time
  
• flickgc or I might want to (re-)read it some time, and it would be hard to repurchase/get an electronic version
  
• The book is rare or valuable
  
• The book is an attractive or interesting object in its own right
  
• The book has sentimental value, or has a story attached to it
  
• flickgc or I might want to lend it to someone else
  
• It's a reference book
  
• It's currently wedged under a piece of furniture to stop it wobbling

(According to the catalogue, we currently have 4,229 books. And I reckon the space each book occupies costs around £20 at current London property prices.)

ETA: The library is online here.

Comments

Oh wow

[hazelchaz]

Shades of the Cold Equations. How much real-estate value does each book in the collection use up.

I'd been thinking a little about those kinds of issues, but only in terms of storage rental fees, in which it costs ten times as much to store something for ten years, as it does for one year. I hadn't really started to ponder the "cost" of things stored here at the house. After all, apart from paying the mortgage and the property tax and insurance and upkeep of the house, there's no cost to store it here, right? (Wrong, of course, but it's the easy course my mind slides through.)

Every time you get another book, put twenty quid in a jar to pay for its shelf space. Eventually you'll have enough to build that add-on library addition to the house...

I need to process this, and think about what you've written and what I need to do. Thank you, as ever, for your insight.