[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What to do with old computer books?
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Ask HN: What to do with old computer books?
I have a meter of old computer books that I no longer need, I can't
really see there's much demand for Java 1.3, or Dreamweaver 4. I
have been told that acid based papers can't be recycled, I'd take
them to the charity shop but it seems pointless if they'll just
throw them out.
Author : zeristor
Score : 11 points
Date : 2022-12-28 20:56 UTC (2 hours ago)
| varelse wrote:
| [dead]
| simonblack wrote:
| download a digital copy from the web. throw out the paper.
|
| I did a clean out a couple of years back of cassettes, books,
| CDs, and vinyl LPs and replaced them with digital copies. I also
| threw out the IKEA Billy bookcase they had been stored in.
| aliljet wrote:
| I kind of love this idea. How do you do this, especially if
| you're throwing originals away, in a frustratingly and
| methodically legal way?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| If you are in Canada I might buy a few :D
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Most of them are pretty thick so they can be used to line the
| walls of bunkers for extra bullet proofing.
| codinmath wrote:
| give them to homeless shelters, or any charity, maybe someone
| will get interested and you'll change a life, even if the book is
| outdated
|
| the main reason I'm where I am today is the 2 programming books I
| got as a birthday gift at 10 yo
| Hackbraten wrote:
| If there's a retrocomputing museum in your area, chances are
| they'd accept your books as a donation.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The binding of books makes them hard to recycle and usually they
| just get trashed.
|
| Don't waste charity shop time, if you have technical books that
| are of no historical interest and are long irrelevant with
| expired technologies, just trash them, they served their purpose.
|
| Ask yourself if there is a practical chance that a particular
| book would be able to get into the hands of someone who would
| actually value the information inside. If not, garbage.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| post a pic or title list!
| DamonHD wrote:
| The charity shop really won't want them if they have no resale
| use/value.
|
| I'd be astonished if those books cannot be usefully recycled
| alongside (say) cardboard.
|
| But you might first ask your local museum or university computing
| dept if they'd like some for historical record!
| some-guy wrote:
| See if it's been archived digitally or not. I'm sure there is
| someone here who at least knows someone who is interested in
| preserving old documentation.
| syntheweave wrote:
| Most old books are effectively disposable decor - the industry
| prints them by the millions and many have a limited life akin to
| the Dreamweaver how-to's. The "last a lifetime" highly sought-
| after books are truly the exception here.
|
| For archival purposes you can go see if it's in the Library of
| Congress or scanned into Internet Archive, and if not, that's a
| project you can opt to take on(but it's pretty high effort).
| Quickly checking for resale value as other comments suggest is
| also not hard, just expect that most of your stash will go
| straight to the bin, and getting more out of it means making it
| your job.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > I can't really see there's much demand for Java 1.3, or
| Dreamweaver 4
|
| You'd be surprised. Go to "sell back your books" and install the
| app, scan in the bar code or QR, and find out. They might offer
| you a small amount of money.
|
| They also take some non-technical books, btw. They send you a
| prepaid shipping label, too.
| cameron_b wrote:
| That's a good tip.
|
| I was pleasantly surprised to see "Wicked cool shell scripts"
| worth 4x "High Performance habits" at 48 cents
| zeristor wrote:
| The Peach Press Dreamweaver 4 book is listed on Sell your books
| at PS0.46. I'm surprised it's worth that much, the postage and
| packing would be far more.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I used to sell old IT books on Amazon or Ebay. Thankfully most
| were more timeless than "Foo 1.2.3 in 21 days". Once I even
| acquired and sold a one-foot-cube-sized MSDN box for about a
| thousand dollars. Both of us made a lot of money.
|
| At some point Ebay deleted my account and I recreated it later
| but lost my history. Amazon now requires invasive identity
| verification I refuse and won't let me sell anymore, despite
| having over a decade doing it in good standing. It is possible it
| was related to me briefly selling an ebook, which doing
| permanently took away some of my privileges. Dunno for sure, the
| site is obtuse and has more archaic layers than the Windows
| control panel. Easy to get into a link loop and never find out
| why it doesn't work.
|
| TL;DR--These big companies just DGAF. I now throw old IT books in
| the trash/recycle-bin when I move. Currently have some about CMS
| that would be useful to someone.
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(page generated 2022-12-28 23:01 UTC)