
Ask HN: What do you do with old technical books? - tzs
I have a fair number of books (about 150 shelf-feet worth, or 45 shelf-meters), many of which are technical books. Many of them are older, and I&#x27;m contemplating getting rid of those to free up shelf space for other uses, but I&#x27;m not sure which to get rid of, and how to get rid of them, so I&#x27;m curious what others here do.<p>On the question of which to get rid of, the candidates fall into two groups.<p>1. Technologies that are pretty much dead now. It&#x27;s very hard to imagine that I&#x27;m ever again going to need to crack open &quot;Undocumented DOS&quot; or &quot;Inside AppleTalk&quot;, for example.<p>2. Technologies that are still in use, but my books cover older editions. For example, I have the second and third editions of Stroustrup&#x27;s &quot;The C++ Programming Language&quot;, and also several other C++ books from that era. I haven&#x27;t done C++ in long enough that I&#x27;ve largely forgotten the language, and will probably need to relearn it at some point.<p>C++ has grown a lot since those books were written, but it seems much of what is in them would still be valid, and one might even argue that for something like this learning an older, simpler version first might be better.<p>For getting rid of books, the obvious thing that comes to mind is tossing them in the recycling bin. Mine takes paperbacks, and hardbacks if the covers are removed first, so this would be easy.<p>A coworker suggests trying to sell them to a used bookstore or giving them to a used bookstore if they don&#x27;t want to buy them. I don&#x27;t like that, at least for books in the first category above, because they could end up bought by someone trying to get into technology who doesn&#x27;t realize that these are dead technologies.
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mindcrime
I know exactly what you mean. Only a few feet from me as I type this, I have a
bookcase staring me in the face, loaded with books on COM, DCOM, ActiveX, OLE,
MFC, ATL, Win32 API, etc. I know I'll never need this stuff again, either
because it's obsolete or because I have developed an ideological aversion to
any of this proprietary crap. I only have this stuff because it dates back to
the beginnings of my career when having some knowledge of the Microsoft way of
things seemed like a prudent, pragmatic approach.

Anyway... this stuff sits there, taking up space and maybe bringing back
memories, but adding no value otherwise. But I can't bring myself to just
pitch them all in the bin. I guess I'm a bit of a book hoarder and I have a
hard time getting rid of books.

Hopefully if you get some good answers, it will help motivate me to try and
get rid of some of the cruft I have here.

All of that said, I can see how some of this stuff could have value to
_somebody_. Even the _Inside Appletalk_ book could be useful. Maybe somebody
who's way into retrocomputing and actually wants to implement an AppleTalk
network. Maybe a historian writing a history of computer networking
technologies. Or a hobbyist looking for an older, simpler networking standard
to reverse engineer and build something off of. Who knows?

One option might be to see if you have a hackerspace/makerspace in your area,
and offer to donate some or all of you superfluous books to them, or their
members. I think that's the kind of crowd where you might find somebody who
actually _wants_ a copy of _Undocumented DOS_ or _Inside AppleTalk_.

Another option might be to try selling them on Amazon.com.

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tjr
My favorite approach is, at the office where I work, you can pile books up on
top of the recycle bins, and people often do just that. They'll linger there
for a few days, maybe a week, before they get collected to be recycled.
Sometimes someone else will walk up and grab one. (I parted with my 3rd
edition of Stroustrup this way, with a shiny new 4th edition on my shelf
today.)

If you work in a large enough office, that could be a good way to give a
decent number of other programmers the option to grab some free books, and
anything nobody wants gets recycled.

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matt_s
If they are old enough that if browsing a used book section you wouldn't
purchase, then throw them out or recycle them.

If there is some sentimental value in keeping some, like it reminds you of a
cool project or team, etc. then sit down and flip thru the book with your
favorite beverage. Then throw it out.

If you are feeling that later on some of these books might be useful, like
there is some resurgence of the tech where you can make ridiculous money as a
consultant, cherish that fantasy and then throw them out.

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davewasthere
Have you opened in the the last three years? If not, toss it.

I wouldn't bother trying to sell them. Books aren't worth much. Recycle sounds
like the best option. But I would put them up on Gumtree/Craigslist/Local FB
group to see if there is a CS-Student or similar who couldnt' make use out of
some of them.

That said, I have a couple of boxes of tech books in the shed that I've still
not gotten rid of.

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bjourne
I have the same problem. Java books from the late 90's and stuff. I should
bring myself to throw them away because they are now useless but they were so
expensive when I bought them... I'd gladly give them away but I can't imagine
anyone wanting them.

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tonyedgecombe
I'm pretty ruthless about this stuff, my local supermarket has a bin for
books, they either end up for sale on AbeBooks or if they aren't worth
anything they go for pulp.

I used to try and sell them if I thought they had some value but it was just
too much hassle.

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kzisme
When I was still in school there was a table near the CS department where
professors would put boxes of old technical books so that people could pick
them up (they all got picked up) if they wanted them.

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spcelzrd
I would like to find some books on Forth. I just dump my old books in a
donation bin.

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KiDD
Keep them on my bookshelf! Most of my books are technical manuals and
references

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cevi
Why not donate them to a library?

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sotojuan
While the idea of donating to a library is always good, I doubt the usefulness
of giving a library books on completely outdated technology that 0.0001% of
people still use. Have you ever been to a used book store or library? Their
tech section is nearly useless. I would honestly not want more tech books from
2002 unless they're well respected and in some way still useful.

I'd find a way to recycle them. The sad part about tech books is that most of
them become useless after five years, if not before.

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fiftyacorn
Use them to prop up my monitor

