Saturday, July 15, 2017

How do you manage your book collection?


I have accumulated a lot of books over the years. I do read a lot of e-books, and I borrow books from libraries. However, sometimes I end up buying a book if it's not available in one of those categories. I like to keep nonfiction to refer to them, make notes, and bookmark pages. And cookbooks are much easier to read and use in print form.

A lot of my books are old textbooks from school. I've taken a lot of classes over the years, and sometimes (due to a new edition) the books are not worth anything when I'm done. Some I kept as a reference, though they get outdated quickly.

Ideally, I'd keep them all forever. But sometimes I know that I'm not going to read certain books again or they have no sentimental value, so I remove them from my collection. After all, I'm going to move someday, and books are heavy.

How do you get rid of old books you don't need anymore? Fiction that's still in good condition can go to charity, usually either a library book sale or a thrift store. Really outdated books, or books in bad condition, can be recycled. Bookscouter is also a good way to find sites that buy back textbooks.

And as for the remaining collection? I have a huge bookshelf to display my books. I try to group them by subject--fiction, cookbooks, textbooks, etc.--but more often I tend to group them by size, just so they fit on the shelf.

If you have any tips for managing a book collection, please leave them in the comments.

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