‘Why you should throw books out’: Maybe even that boring old novel on whaling?
"My wife and I have periodic arguments about throwing books out. I love to throw books out. I treat that as a sign of my love of books and—even more—my love of readers."
So writes a George Mason University professor named Tyler Cowen, author of Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting and Motivate Your Dentist.
I dunno, Tyler; I’d side with the savers. I know you’re considerately protecting your friends and family, and maybe a few homeless English majors, from mediocre writing. But should you be the gatekeeper in many cases? Definitely yes—when it comes to out-of-date or otherwise inaccurate books on topics like medicine and law. But what do you do about, say, an old paperback of Peyton Place? Might Grace Metalious might be just the writer to get some sixteen-year in a housing project to read books?
Filters better than trash bins—virtual or real
Luckily, with E, this isn’t as much a problem—books can live on forever, with various filtering mechanisms to guide readers to just the right ones for them. In fact, isn’t it possible that some of today’s throw-aways could be tomorrow’s classics? Scan ‘em before it’s too late? Come to think of it, I know of a big, boring 19th century novel cluttered with huge patches of exposition with arcana on whaling. Ech! Off to the trash heap! Up with literary standards! Forget about any book by Kilgore Trout, of course. More seriously, haven’t certain library systems been cutting back on classics to clear shelf space for the latest junky bestsellers?
Close to home: E can cut both ways–making it easier for know-it-alls to play Orwell via the DEL key. Publishers Weekly made me a nonperson, zapping tens of thousands of words that I’d written for the E-Book Report blog. It gave similar treatment to the blog of a former publisher as well as that of the deputy editor who had hired me. Who knows the reasoning, but I’d written more than a few uppity words on DRM and eBabel and the like. More on my favorite industry "bible" later on today or tomorrow.
Related: The book bubble, from Virtual Economics.
July 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
For those of us who realize we’re making mortgage payments on square footage used mostly to provide air conditioned comfort to hunks of wood pulp, the idea of getting rid of books is appealing (actually throwing away my treasures is hard, though).
My lovely wife imposed a rule years ago, after she realized we’d filled our wall space with bookcases and were encroaching on the centers of rooms, that one book must go out for each book that comes in.
Absolutely one of the advantages of e is that we can have our books without letting them take over our homes.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
July 1st, 2008 at 3:57 pm
@Rob
The line I use with my wife is that my books provide both thermal mass and insulative properties effectively increasing the energy efficiency of the house.
That my story, and I’m sticking to it
July 1st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Books whose value and relevance declines with age should be thrown out. (computer books, etc)
Books which are unused and can be checked out of a library in a pinch should be thrown out. (i.e., anthologies).
Books which cannot be easily donated to someone willing to take it should be thrown out. (i.e. old periodicals).
Works that are now in the public domain should …with very rare exceptions…be thrown out.
That leaves novels, essay collections, criticism, history,
I have bought lots of books in the last two or three years. all of them novels. None of which I expect to throw out for a while.
It’s hard to reduce the size of your book collection. When I went into peace corps, I had to discard about 75% of my books. It was time consuming and painful.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I have a simple proposal for public libraries: instead of throwing books out, each library passes on their entire surviving stock of fiction (minus duplicates) to another library every five years, and receives that library’s stock in exchange. The ratepayer saves money and the library’s subscribers have a chance to read a completely different set of books.
‘But they’re not NEW fiction books,’ the neolibrists always whine at this point. OK, explain why that matters.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I’m more offended by the non-mention of recycling as an alternative to trashing books. I have no problems with getting rid of bad/old books, but it should be done in a way that is the least environmentally destructive. Repulp the paper and gimme another read!
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:28 am
I’m aghast at the thought of throwing books out!
Though I do agree that outdated computer books and the like can go.
I’d agree with gnowingonfoot, if you must get rid of them, do try to recycle; either by giving them to a library or someone who wants them, or *cry* re-pulping the paper.
Oh, and regarding the headline for this post: Moby Dick is a good book, despite what my wife thinks!
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I had an interesting conversation with an Amazon rep about personal inventories of print books. My wife and I are both PhDs so we have two offices in the home and all our wall space is covered with bookcases. It’s a bit much. But these books also represent a personal treasure of knowledge - a library. So what to do about combining digital and print libraries?
Comparing to my iPod experience- the value of the $350 iPod was in converting all my CDs to MP3s, which I could do on my time and not have to buy again through iTunes. Can this work with the Kindle?
If Jeff Bezos wants to sell Kindles and the publishers wants to sell us backlists, I suggested perhaps Amazon wants to find a way to trade in print books for eBook versions and then consolidate these books for shipment to libraries in developing countries. I would pay a nominal charge to replace print books with eBooks and I’d be happy to donate my print books to libraries that need them. (It will be sometime before poorer populations can mass consume eReader devices.)
Good PR for Amazon, good for publishers, good for poorer societies and good for personal libraries’ oversized footprints. Maybe Bezos could get Gates involved, or all those philanthropists with too much time and money who hang around Davos every year?
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Michael, great idea. The problem is that Amazon would need some way to confirm your ownership, and if you need to mail them back a book, that defeats the purpose. It might work if you could return it to a Borders or Barnes and Noble though.
Let’s be clear. Used print books are generally cheaper than ebooks, but the balance will be tipping over the next few years.
A more realistic idea would be for Amazon to agree to upconvert ebooks into the latest format if you purchased them. That would be nice and reassuring. Sometimes it takes a decade for me to get around to a book.
July 5th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Robert, yes, the ownership would have to be confirmed by delivering the book in some way. All the shipping costs of the books are a dead weight loss, which is why I think you need a philanthropic effort to cover that. (But Amazon does have a material interest in this as they would sell lots more Kindles. They can email me a mailing label.)
eBooks have value beyond the print version and I’m willing to pay something for that value. My gut feeling is somewhere around $2-3. (=zero delivery cost with pure profit margins shared by publisher, author and Amazon as eBook distributor.)