

Ask HN: Did you throw away all of your college textbooks and regret it? - schillingt

I'm trying to determine if it's worth keeping four large boxes for the rest of my life or if I should get rid of my college textbooks now. What have you done?
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sp332
I'm not sure about the rest of your life, but I would wait a few years to
decide. It's going to take a while for you to adjust from what's important
inside school to what's important to you in "real life", and then you can make
a better decision about which books might actually help you.

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mindcrime
_Did you throw away all of your college textbooks and regret it?_ _What have
you done?_

No, I rarely part with a book under any circumstances. Of course, the downside
to this is that my apartment looks like that of the book dealer guy from that
movie _Unfaithful_. I've long overflowed all of my shelf space, and now have
books stacked up all around the place. I keep meaning to pitch some of the
obviously no-longer-useful ones (especially the ones on obsolete, closed-
source, proprietary technologies like ASP, ActiveX, etc.) but I have a real
strong aversion to throwing books out.

~~~
tjr
After college (see my top-level reply) I became the same way for some years. I
eventually came to realize that a lot of my books truly no longer held any
value to me, and I would almost certainly never open them again. I've managed
to clear out about 10-15% of my collection, which actually did marvels for
making the place look tidier.

Of course, I'm also continuing to buy more books, so, um...

Maybe someday I'll come to like ebooks just as much, but so far I'm not
counting on it.

~~~
mindcrime
Yeah, for a technology enthusiast, I'm something of a luddite when it comes to
books. I mean, not totally, as I've purchased 3 Nooks over the years (the last
one because I lost the first 2, but still...)

I've found that e-books occupy a certain niche for me, and they haven't
replaced dead-tree books in general. I _love_ my ebook reader when flying (I
can carry hundreds or thousands of books on the plane with me! How awesome is
that?), and when reading in bed at night (when I'm ready to go to sleep, I
just close the cover and close my eyes. No need to fumble around with the
lamp, etc.)

That said, most of my ebooks are pirated and are limited to specific niche
topics - my collection of ebooks doesn't even begin to rival my physical
library in breadth. Maybe eventually, but we'll see...

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ja27
No, I kept almost all of them. I bet that out of maybe 40 textbooks, I've used
maybe 4 - all programming-related (Programming Pearls, Numerical Recipes, some
algorithm texts). I also have hundreds of non-textbooks sitting in boxes now.

Doing it all over again today with what's available online, I'd get rid of
almost every book after I was done with it. They are so easy to replace that
it's not worth the hassle and storage. Think of Amazon / eBay as your book
storage mechanism.

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7402
I once pointed out, to a former grad school roommate, a big fat general
relativity textbook sitting on my bookshelf. I said that even though I didn't
use it any more and had forgotten its contents, it was hard for me to throw it
out. "Of course not!" he replied, "It's the only proof you have that ever knew
any of that stuff."

It's gone now. I've gotten rid of most of my textbooks, but I still retain a
sampling for sentimental reasons.

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orillian
I gave the bulk of mine away and kept only those that had value to me still.

While it's increasingly becoming harder for new students to use old text books
due to the habits of publishers releasing new versions yearly and educators go
along with it, there is still a lot of value to a new student in a slightly
older text.

Regards,

O.

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morisy
Nope. I do regret not reading more, but have found that your local library
(and local college library) has what you need, when you need it, 99% of the
time.

There are a few treasured texts I keep (Elements of Style, a really good
programming book written by a professor) that I kept, but I ditched 95% of
them and never missed a beat.

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caw
I kept all the definitive language references (K&R for example), and
theoretical books that I thought would be applicable, but got rid of most of
the rest. I didn't even really use textbooks the last year or two of school,
so it was mostly just undergrad classes that I had left.

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tjr
I sold most of them after I was done with them, usually for a tiny fraction of
what I paid. A few retained value well.

At the time, I didn't expect to ever want the books again, but after a few
years, I wished I had kept some that I got rid of.

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sveiss
After the first term, I mostly stopped buying books and used the library
instead. The books I did buy I've hung on to.

Today, I mostly regret not living close enough to an academic library to visit
when I want.

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dagw
I've kept about a dozen, mostly higher level, books and chucked the rest. Of
those I've probably used 3-4 over the past few years, and I've never missed
any of the ones I chucked.

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coryl
Maybe a more relevant question: How many times in the last few years did you
reference one of your books?

Unless you're keeping them for nostalgia/sentimental value.

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mildavw
At age 32 I sold those that had still had any resale value. Recycled most of
the rest, and hung on to three with nostalgic value.

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impendia
It's my notes I regret throwing out.

The books, I could replace on Amazon or eBay if I chose.

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duncan_bayne
I sold almost all of them, being a penniless student. And yes, I regret it.

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shail
Out the day I graduated.

