What to do with old encyclopedias?

How about a paper recycling depot? Maybe it can be turned into toilet paper or pizza boxes :P D from BC

• Use them for flower pressing. A few paper towels, some flowers, a stack of books...
• If you are in an area that is prone to high winds, donate them to someone who lives in a mobile home.
• Rip off the covers and fold the pages to make them into Christmas trees.
• Decide who you want to piss off, redecorate the covers as appropriate, and have a "book burning".

I hope these suggestions help :^)

Soak them in kerosene and use them as fire starter this winter.

Jim

-- "If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right." --Henry Ford

what should I do with them? The local library

Freecycle them. Some home schoolers love old reference books.

That is a reasonable idea............ there are those who do collect older books. While "I" don't collect whole sets of those sorts of books, I do collect some older books such as used in schools "years" ago. And, I certainly don't pass up any Electronics references when I find them.

IF there is a "Goodwill" type store - donate them there - maybe they can sell them and make a profit for a good cause. In the end, "you" will have gotten rid of them - one way or another. How about - maybe a family who is poor and doesn't have "internet" access - much less a computer - maybe they could use those books for some reference?

Lou

Most of the other ideas are crap to the worst. Just because the information is also available on the internet, doesn't make them obsolete. With sufficient time at hand they make an interesting browsing through the pages. As child I leart a lot just by browsing the lexica of the parents.

Rene

Richard Henry wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@q4g2000prc.googlegroups.com:

Donate to the Salvation Army?

These are collectibles. Someone may be looking for the set just like what you have. Post them on eBay. You will be surprised. I saw a 11th edition for sale (1910-1911) with 8 bidder.

Ken

----- Torrey Hills Technologies, LLC

Books that old can be real fun to read. I've got a mechanical engineering book somewhere here that states that "radio" is some kind of yet unexplored science that envisions the miraculous transport of information via an ether. Wow, and here I am designing that kind of stuff ....

I once saw an old dictionary in a used book store and I'm kicking myself for not spending the two bits they were asking for it. It defined Uranium to be a worthless white metal.

Jim

Nice! A fake, banned bookburning. :D

Here are some suggestions for the main thread: Hollow out the interior of one of the year-books as a poor-man's 'safe' for keeping objects. One lone yearbook in the middle of a bunch of books won't catch as much attention as, say, the letter 'Li- Mc' all by itself.

We have a set, ourselves (wife and I) from the late 1980s. We plan on just giving them to our 6 and 8 year-old nieces for general 'browsing'.

Tom P. .

I have a set of World Book's I have to get rid of. With some of these ideas I may save some. First thing I have to do is clear out all the saved information, compressed leaves, saved letters, saved mementos, etc. Being in the family for about 45 years I would guess.

greg

A School will take them

What can be really strange - is - they've been there for so long - you crack one open - and start reading something that catches your eye - stuff you wouldn't have even through of looking up on "Google" or so on. You are so "drawn" to it, it is hard to set it down. I've had that happen often with books I don't normally pick up aside from moving them here and there. Makes you wonder at times why you never bothered to read it/them more.

Those older books - do have some interesting information in them. It is outdated - yes - but it is the narrations that often go along with them - that are interesting to read. The "wondering" of how the future might be in relation to mechanics, science, electronics, etc. And here we are - living a lot of it.

Lou

Read them!

Read every page and then write a best-selling novel about the experience!!

Oops, nevermind. - Looks like A. J. Jacobs already beat you to it.....

-mpm

1. Put them on ebay.

1. Keep them, they will become valuable oneday.

Old books are quite interesting, I have a lot of old "wireless" books from about 1900-1920 and they are good reading. You may not see the value in your lifetime, but your great-grandkids will.

Then go on a Quiz Show and win a pile of money. Seriously I have seen articles on some of the big prize winning contestants, reading atlas's encyclopedias and other reference books and then entering!

Andrew

Retirement homes, hospitals, prisons - yes, prisons have libraries -

I can't imagine anyone not wanting a donated set of encyclopedias.

Heck, put an ad in your local "recycler", or up on the bulletin board at the local grocery if they have one.

Good Luck! Rich

When I was a kid in grade school, a friend dropped by and gave me a rock, said it was Uranium ore. I never knew what happed with that rock.

greg