December 8th, 2005 - Bye bye books
I just gave away 75% of the books on my office shelves. Now, don’t get too excited–there were only 9 books! I saved one and two were put on Amazon. If they don’t sell in the next 10 days, they’ll be gone as well. I work at a university, and once again someone has put up collection boxes for textbooks that can’t be sold back. They’ll go to Africa (or sold and the profits go to the project, or at least recycled if nothing else can be done). Mine are in great shape and are classics in great shape, so I hope they’ll go all the way to Africa. A few are math books so they definitely should last! Math doesn’t change very much year to year. I’ve pared down my office collection over the years. These were the last 9 books. The other week, someone commented on my nearly-bare shelves and I started explaining why those few books were left.
I realized that the reasons for each were pretty lame: Should read this. Used this for my dissertation. Should have used this for my dissertation. Autographed by the author. My favorite math book. A gift I’ve never read. I haven’t actually read something from any of these books for at least 6 years.
So when I saw the sign about books for Africa, over to the dropbox they all went. (Except the two I’ll try to sell.) The one book I’m left with is one our chancellor loves and it may come up again if I continue working with administration. So I’ll keep it a little longer. (And, in the interests of complete disclosure, I do have 6 other books, but they are for lending to faculty and do not belong to me personally. I now have more shelves that I have books.)
December 8th, 2005 at 4:06 pm EST
I don’t know you.