This is a subject of great interest to me, since I'm about buried in books and compact discs (not literally). I have a bunch and keep accumulating more, especially CDs. But this is about books.
I read through it earlier this morning so I'll have to review it ...
OK, here's a sentence from it: "You're a book hoarder. How do you stop the insanity?"
Some of the steps include:
1. Cull your existing collection. - This has to do with giving your books to the library, to charity, or book lovers. That's a good idea. Except I don't suppose the library wants people's books, especially, since they want to order what they want. If I gave my books and then saw them sitting on their dime table the next day, that would be offensive. Philanthropists deserve better.
2. Sell your books. They suggest Amazon and Half.com. Of course there's eBay. But that's a lot of work, I mean a lot of work. Then you have dissatisfied customers. There's all the work of grading everything, describing it. I'd rather see it on the library's table, except for the potential money you could make.
Skip to 4. Make a rule that you will read X number of books before buying another one. Wow, if I had that kind of restraint I wouldn't be buried in books. Plus, that one is only really relevant when you're buying new books for $24.95 apiece. Then you want to read it through, or at least not buy as many. But when you get them at thrift stores for 50 cents or a book sale for a dime or a garage sale for a dime for the box, you don't always have the luxury of waiting till you've read X number of books. The time to get them is now.
Skip to 8. Use the library. Check out books there. Yeah, please. The library's selection is worse than my own, at least for topics that I'm interested in. They generalize, they have a lot of crap ... I mean a lot of crap. Of course the library where you live might be a huge library or a university library, in which case the crap/non-crap ratio is different.
Here's some advice from the article:
If you are a person who likes to pen notes directly in a book, you might find it hard to find people who will buy or take a book that has been written in. Three things you can do: learn to make notes elsewhere so you can reference them without the book, jot things down on mini post-it notes and stick them in the pages, or just limit what books you write in and keep them. One thing you can do is scan the page and write your note on that and keep it in a file. Yes, there are laws against this, but only if you copy the entire book. Copying a page here and there isn't an issue especially if it is for personal use. There is nothing wrong with the practice of writing in a book so long as you understand that others will not want it afterward.Very bad idea. If you're getting rid of the book, you don't really care if anyone wants it or not. For instance, if you're giving it to the library or to a book sale. Yes, if you're trying to sell it on Amazon you want it to be in as nice a condition as possible. But there's no way in this life or any life to come that I'm going to be copying pages of books and putting the copies in files and then getting rid of the book. If it's that important to you, keep the book.
Anyway, it's not really true that if you write in a book no one will want it afterward. I have lots of books that people have written in, and some of the margin notes are fun to read. I have a really old copy of some of Emerson's essays and I like seeing the things that the owner from 100 years ago circled and marked and made notes about. I have a book somewhere by Teilhard de Chardin, a cheap paperback, where someone had a strenuous knock down drag out debate with Teilhard that he never had to see. That's kind of fun.
Will I stop accumulating books? I think I've already slowed down in recent years. I'm pickier. But I do have lots of books that I don't really need or want, and when spring gets here, some of them will definitely be going somewhere. One good sign of a book you don't especially need is if it's in the basement in a box or plastic tote.
