Moving On, Cleaning Out: Books
Feb. 24th, 2026 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerI remarked yesterday that following the start of my retirement I am cleaning out old work-related stuff— both out of my mind as well as out of my shelves. Yesterday I removed a bunch of work stuff from my mobile phone so that it would no longer live rent-free in my head. Today I tackled a bunch of the books I've had on a shelf near my desk and in piles atop my desk and at my nightstand.
I decided I would largely banish those books to "purgatory", the nickname we use for our finished crawlspace. But to do that I first had to make space in purgatory for them. I did that by moving a useful multipurpose shelf we bought when our pantry was out of commission down to purgatory.
I started by moving really old books onto the shelf. These books (above) were in two boxes stacked on the floor. By shelving the books I'd make better use of vertical space and thus free up floor space— for a second shelf to hold the books coming down from my office!
As I looked at these books, though, I realized I will pretty much never use them again. Ever. Seriously, I sat there for 10 minutes in the crawlspace, just staring at them, weighing what to do next.
I've remarked before I can't bring myself to throw out books. So I decided I would donate them to my local library. Among other reasons why, these technical books were $50-65 in the 1990s. To the extent the material in them is still relevant— and a lot of it is basically applied mathematics, so it is— their newer counterparts probably sell for $150-$200 new today. Each. Times the 25-30 books pictured. I'm not looking to get money for them; but by giving them to the library I hope they help students today who struggle to afford that kind of expense.
So. I hauled those books off to the library today. That freed up my shelf-space. Then I hauled these down from my home office and bedroom nightstand:
Okay, the bottom shelf here were already in the crawlspace. Those are mostly proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH. I decided to hold onto those for the time being in case they have collector value. If nothing else they have sentimental value to me, as that field was my focus of study from my last few semesters of undergrad through 3 years of graduate school through the first 6 years of my post-academic career.
The middle and top shelves are the books I moved downstairs. As you scan the titles I think you can see why they're drastically less relevant in retirement. Oh, and I mentioned above not thinking books should ever be thrown out.... Well, there's one on the shelf I'd make an exception for. See if you can guess.
I decided I would largely banish those books to "purgatory", the nickname we use for our finished crawlspace. But to do that I first had to make space in purgatory for them. I did that by moving a useful multipurpose shelf we bought when our pantry was out of commission down to purgatory.
I started by moving really old books onto the shelf. These books (above) were in two boxes stacked on the floor. By shelving the books I'd make better use of vertical space and thus free up floor space— for a second shelf to hold the books coming down from my office!
As I looked at these books, though, I realized I will pretty much never use them again. Ever. Seriously, I sat there for 10 minutes in the crawlspace, just staring at them, weighing what to do next.
I've remarked before I can't bring myself to throw out books. So I decided I would donate them to my local library. Among other reasons why, these technical books were $50-65 in the 1990s. To the extent the material in them is still relevant— and a lot of it is basically applied mathematics, so it is— their newer counterparts probably sell for $150-$200 new today. Each. Times the 25-30 books pictured. I'm not looking to get money for them; but by giving them to the library I hope they help students today who struggle to afford that kind of expense.
So. I hauled those books off to the library today. That freed up my shelf-space. Then I hauled these down from my home office and bedroom nightstand:
Okay, the bottom shelf here were already in the crawlspace. Those are mostly proceedings of ACM SIGGRAPH. I decided to hold onto those for the time being in case they have collector value. If nothing else they have sentimental value to me, as that field was my focus of study from my last few semesters of undergrad through 3 years of graduate school through the first 6 years of my post-academic career.
The middle and top shelves are the books I moved downstairs. As you scan the titles I think you can see why they're drastically less relevant in retirement. Oh, and I mentioned above not thinking books should ever be thrown out.... Well, there's one on the shelf I'd make an exception for. See if you can guess.
