When’s the last time you weeded out your library? Do you regularly keep it pared down to your reading essentials? Or does it blossom into something out of control the minute you turn your back, like a garden after a Spring rain?
Or do you simply not get rid of books? At all? (This would have described me for most of my life, by the way.)
And–when you DO weed out books from your collection (assuming that you do) …what do you do with them? Throw them away (gasp)? Donate them to a charity or used bookstore? SELL them to a used bookstore? Trade them on Paperback Book Swap or some other exchange program?
I went through my entire library about two years ago, and purged all of the books I either (a) had read and knew I wouldn’t re-read, or (b) had never read and had no intention of reading (most of which I had no idea how I came by in the first place). I traded them primarily on BookMooch and also a few on PaperbackSwap, being more particular about the books I acquired through the same. It was the first voluntary book purge of my life, and it was painful, but necessary.
Since I joined LibraryThing and have been more deliberate about my reading selections, I’ve considered a second purge; having just moved myself, this is an ideal time. I have to go through my LT catalog and remove those books which were Mare’s or which she elected to keep that were ours, have those migrated to her new account, move the ones I’d like to replace to my Wish List collection, all that jazz. So, it’s going to be a huge project, but a very comforting one, a la Rob’s vinyl reorganization in High Fidelity.
Howsabout you?