Ping John Larkin, Phil Hobbs etc. re books

Been lurking on this news group for many years. I thought the two gentleme n mentioned above (and others) could give me advice regarding disposition o f technical books. I have probably over a 1000 technical books that I have accumulated over ma ny decades. Just turned 77 and concerned about what to do with my library. I had a Professional Civil Engineering Consulting practice for over 40 ye ars.

Books range from sanitation, sewer practice, bridge design, highway and rai lway design, soils, structural. Non-Civil books include an extensive library on advanced mathematics, radio /television repair, electronics, physics, chemistry, metal working and mach inery. Yes, many books are old, some of the plumbing design books are from the 1890's. (Extremely interesting illustrations). I have already given away my land surveying texts (about 50), my chess book s (about 120) and most of my music theory books.

It would break my heart to throw the remaining books in the trash, yet that is exactly what will happen on my passing. My attachment is simply this: I raised and provided for a family, and dozens of employees based on the kn owledge in these books. Yes, I know that most of this is available on the internet.

I would gladly give away any and all for the simple cost of postage.

So, gentlemen, what have you done? How did you emotionally detach from your texts?

BTW, what I am not getting rid of, are over 14,000 titles of music. About

12,000 are singles with nostalgia inducing covers, the rest are titles with in album collections. And, yes, I'm a frustrated piano player and am famil iar with over 5-6000 songs all the way up to the mid 1970's.

Help. Advice please.

Reply to
Ivan Vegvary
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men mentioned above (and others) could give me advice regarding disposition of technical books.

many decades. Just turned 77 and concerned about what to do with my librar y. I had a Professional Civil Engineering Consulting practice for over 40 years.

ailway design, soils, structural.

io/television repair, electronics, physics, chemistry, metal working and ma chinery. Yes, many books are old, some of the plumbing design books are fr om the 1890's. (Extremely interesting illustrations).

oks (about 120) and most of my music theory books.

at is exactly what will happen on my passing. My attachment is simply this : I raised and provided for a family, and dozens of employees based on the knowledge in these books. Yes, I know that most of this is available on th e internet.

ur texts?

t 12,000 are singles with nostalgia inducing covers, the rest are titles wi thin album collections. And, yes, I'm a frustrated piano player and am fam iliar with over 5-6000 songs all the way up to the mid 1970's.

As a last resort, you could donate them to

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Reply to
Michael Terrell

I'm a book collector too and I'll be 80 soon. I'm sure there are some survival people that would love these books. They need to be preserved I think. I'd contact James Wesley Rawles at

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He has a very large audience and knows a lot of people that may be interested.

Reply to
gray_wolf

Ivan Vegvary wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Digitize them and publish the PDFs online.

Or, digitize each one that you sell as you sell it.

Reply to
DecadentLinuxUserNumeroUno

I have that same problem. I have a ton of wonderful technical books that few people would want. If I donate them to the Friends of the Library, they would likely wind up pulped.

I guess one could email bomb a bunch of university and public libraries, post a list here, ebay, maybe fraternities?

I have cool "Radio" books back to 1921. Wow, that's 99 years.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.  
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Reply to
jlarkin

That's significantly further away than the 22nd century. Gulp.

Reply to
Tom Gardner

It's terribly important that books are preserved IMO. If we ever come to a dystopian Farenheit 451 future where all physical books have been destroyed and there is only the internet to turn to for 'approved versions' of them, then we're screwed. If we're not already.

I feel your pain. I once had to chuck a perfectly good and fully working Tek 555 scope into a dumpster when I moved house some years ago. I can still hear the dreadful crashing noise as it hit the bottom. I still awaken some nights in a delirious sweat whenever I suffer a flashback to that terrible day, more than 20 years ago now. I'll probably never fully recover.

--

No deal? No problem! :-D
Reply to
Cursitor Doom

Donating them to archive.org would be a good possibility. Or list them on abebooks.com and see who comes out of the woodwork. You could maybe work out an arrangement with a local used book store to handle the listings if you don't feel like doing it. Cataloguing them might be a good after-school job for a local high school student with a technical bent.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
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Reply to
Phil Hobbs

American Radio History has many thousands of books and magazines scanned and freely available.

They accept donations of historic technical literature.

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Reply to
keith wright

I have the same problem: The local book stores didn't want used books. The schools weren't interested. I tried to give them away for free and ended up with an education in dealing with scam artists. However, I did manage to get rid of a few of my older pre-WWII technical books via Powell's: Just type in the ISBN numbers, and Powell's will let you know which books they want and how much they'll pay. Notice that they'll pay shipping. I didn't get much for the books, but it was better than recycling them.

I managed to sell a few small book collections on eBay. Instead of selling individual books, I grouped them together by topic and sold them as a lot. For example, some books on Enigma, Bletchley Park, and Enigma: (I plan to keep these). The problem here is the cost of shipping collections. They can be big and heavy.

I've also sold a few books via Alibris: The problem was that I tended to consider the books in better condition than what the buyer thought resulting in a few returns. I now rate the condition very conservatively and worse than the actual condition to avoid an argument. I also have an incurable problem of buying more used books than I sell and then not reading them for months.

I've donated books to the local Goodwill Book Store: The have a local outlet exclusively for books, with limited space. They've refused to accept donations when there is no available shelf space. They also have the irritating habit of scattering multi-volume book collections all over the store largely based on available space.

Another local store that accepts books is Gray Bears: Same shelf space problem as Goodwill. They also accept some eWaste and resell used electronics in their store or on eBay:

If you're going to ship books via USPS, I suggest you look into media or book rate schedule: It's not a huge discount, but worth the effort.

Good luck.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

This post really breaks my heart at many levels. I'm 36 and have been on the Usenet since I was 14. It's a fact of life that people get old and pass away, but I never faced the fact that people who got on the Usenet when they were in their fifties are approaching their eighties nowadays.

I find it delightful that you care so much about your books. Let me propose you an out-of-the-box idea:

Find a book reviewer youtuber and donate/sell your library to them.

Nowadays, Youtube has created a new species of information lovers. Some of them collect and review old books, others collect and review old videogames, others collect and review old computers.

The "retro" Youtube community is huge. And it has an interesting angle for you: you can get to "know" the person you'll be donating/selling to, because you can watch their videos first.

  1. Go to youtube.com
  2. Search for "review "
  3. Watch a few videos, lurk around their profiles, get to know these reviwers well, evaluate if they are going to provide a good home to your library.

I myself would be interested in some old technical books, but I think that a youtuber can review and expose those books, while some "regular person" like myself can only appreciate them in their bookshelf.

That's my bet. I can provide you with more directions or keep trying to provide more context if this idea is too radical for you.

Reply to
Carlos

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