Saturday, January 15, 2011

Books


So, one of my New Resolutions is to Blog more frequently. During the last year I wrote a few blog topics and didn't post. I'm part way through one on Fly-Fishing for Trout in New Zealand. This one however is on 'Books'. I reckon I must have about 1,000 books, thats 32 per shelf across 6 shelves per case across 3 cases, then I reckon about the same number of books stacked on the floor on tops of the shelved books, under beds, in boxes. I'm waiting for the day on of those news magazine programs turns up to do a story on the piles of books. You can try counting them in the photograph.


The books tend to simply accumulate, most get read, many get partially read, some get read more than once, some get used frequently, and others gather dust. Some recent work on the bathroom saw a lot of dust. So now I'm reorganising the books - Do I sell some, give them away (to charity), or keep them to gather more dust? To add to the books there's magazines, periodicals and journals. A number of years ago I sorted through many books and took some to a second hand dealer, and watched as he tallied up the value, 50 cents here, a dollar there, some I think managed several dollars. And again over the years, the collection builds again.


Having a few hobbies and interests is probably part of the issue, the collection spans topics such as; the Second World War, Astronomy, Fitness/Health/Cycling, Bushwalking, Technical Books from University days on Optics, Mathematics, History and Philosophy of Science, Fly Fishing, Model Trains, History of Australia. I'm sitting here wondering how to catalogue them all - pen and paper and start a list, maybe photograph the shelves at least that way I can be comfortable doing the transcribing. Maybe get a bar code reader and get the ISBN number. A cheap hand held USB scanner is less than $100, a hand held bluetooth scanner though is closer to $1000.00.


Do I really need all these books, one book, 'Discovering Astronomy' by 'Robert Chapman' ( no relation), published 1978, I have it dated inside as 1979. I liked it, although the Amazon reviews are not so kind, on the other hand I understood it, unfortunately I've had to mark it for disposal, it was a good starter for Astronomy in its day and still some interesting stuff in there.


Maybe I can split the books into charitable donations and saleable. I think at least 1 in 3 books will have to go, and all except a few periodicals and journals. Fortunately some organisations now publish as 'pdf'.


A lot of these books have my moniker and a date inside, some people like this others hate it. I like to think a book can come back to me if loaned and that the user can be reminded of who loaned the book. If you ever come across one you should drop me a line.


And then, there is all the IT books.

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