Book Buying Addicts Anonymous discussion

While this might sound morbid..... For those of us that have large collections of books... do any of you have plans where or what to do with them when you die?

I've gotten a few of my books (3800+ scifi paperbacks) from estate sales. None of my family really want or love the books as I do... so they will more than likely be sold off piecemeal.

I had thought of leaving the collection (and custom made shelves) to a prison system. My Nephew that is a sheriff suggested that they would make great shivs and "bullet proof" vests. So that's not happening.

Any suggestions? Or out out suggestions??
Tom Hicks

Tom wrote: "While this might sound morbid..... For those of us that have large collections of books... do any of you have plans where or what to do with them when you die?"

Tom, first of all, great question. My dream is to leave my library of currently over 15,000 items to some small town that doesn't have a public library, but I have no idea how to pull this off considering so much would need to be done. There would have be a building found to hold it and a librarian to run it, not to mention, how to pack and transport everything to this town who knows where.

I hope someone can provide a more feasible answer to your question because I really want to know. :-)

That's for bringing this up, Tom~
Like you, I'm not exactly sure what will happen with the books I've collected over decades. Right now, they're in tubs stored in my basement (thousands) that can't be on shelves. Some are in German, French or even Latin & Hungarian. Ideally, I would love for my kids to cherish the knowledge in them like I did. It's one thing to get info from the internet, but the books I have are largely out of print or collectors. I do have a serious romance collection but even then, those are outdated (1970s, 80s & 90s).

Back in 2012, my husband made me convert to digital books to save space & backs when moving, which hasn't stemmed my reading/buying frenzy (if you note, I'm around 25k books). I'm sure, there's a psychological explanation for it, but I am constantly reading.

A while back, I made contact with a woman on the TX/Mex border who said they are actively looking for books to help teach English. I have thought to do something along those lines but not all my books are appropriate for public schools in TX. My daughter has also tutored reading to inner-city kiddos, but they still prefer their nintendos & phone games to books. Even the libraries refer me to their auxiliaries to sell for library profit. It seems, no one is reading real books much any more.

I'm fortunate, in that my son (19 yo) is a reader. He will probably keep everything except the romance novels. I know in Europe, I had a friend (professor) w/over 50,000 books. When he passed, his wife couldn't even GIVE away his books. I would have taken them, but then, the cost of shipping was prohibitive. And again, hubby put his foot down~ no room for more books!

You would think, there would be young people out there, who love books & would be thrilled to inherit a collection. But I have yet to find one. Even schools tend to be picky (can't have banned books!).

I'm sorry, I'm not more help; but, if you do come across solutions, please share them! There's still no guarantee my son will deal with all the books once he realizes the magnitude of my hobby~ I'd love for them to go to someone who appreciates & care for them.
Kris A

For the older and out of print materials in particular, you might consider donating to the Internet Archive (a non-profit with the goal of preserving and making accessible everything ever published).
https://archive.org/

How do I make a physical donation to the Internet Archive? – Internet Archive Help Center
https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/art...-

My book addict heart fluttered reading this and I had to resist the urge to shout "I WILL TAKE THEM ALL!" lol

I only have a few thousand books, but I have wondered the same thing. My thought is to donate my children's books that no one else in my family wants (about 600 books) to an under-privileged elementary school in my area. The rest I will probably donate to prisons and libraries. I have several avid readers in my family, but everyone else reads e-books. I am the only physical bibliophile.

I would love if I could have a job acquiring people's personal libraries and arranging for them to be distributed or collated! *sigh* A girl can dream!

Wow! great comments and ideas!

Packing.... Gaylord containers... they are heavy duty boxes with lids that fit on a pallet for shipping. Want to keep them in alpha order... grocery bag are a perfect fit! The bookshelves I mad can also be shipped via freight company along with the large boxes.

The internet archive is a good idea too for a few hundred books.

Noelle wrote: "My book addict heart fluttered reading this and I had to resist the urge to shout "I WILL TAKE THEM ALL!" lol

I only have a few thousand books, but I have wondered the same thing. My thought is to..."

Only on Goodreads would someone say, "I only have a few thousand books" and be serious. Every time I feel as though I have too many books, I am reminded there are others who have many more than me.

Been away for awhile.. reading books! Leaving a collection of paperbacks to a library... good luck! Of the dozen or so I contacted... don't really want them.

A prison... my nephew ( a sheriff) told me that the books could very well be rolled up to make a "shiv". Or pages torn out to make a vest.

Perhaps a hospital... or as has been mentioned... a elementary -> high school.

A psychiatric hospital. I was an involuntary patient in one during two turbulent times in my life. There is not much to do there (because no, one is not in therapy all the time) and electronic media such as a Kindle or other e-reader is not allowed. The hospital had a limited amount of books/magazines. I would have been so grateful for a bigger selection of reading material!

Sounds perfect! I'll start looking into some of the local ones and see what they have to say.

What about creating a library in both a physical and organisational sense? This is what I think about.

1. I would need to obtain a building to physically house the books.

2. And create an organisation of some kind to own the building and the books, and to maintain them. A trust? A charity? A nonprofit?

3. And some money to run the organisation and pay for the physical maintenance into the future.

4. And finally, the library - physical and organisational - should probably do something. Otherwise it is just a giant box.

I dont know if that thing would be;
Protecting, conserving, archiving, digitising, and - when legal - distributing.
Or allowing approved people to read.
Or allowing everyone to read.
Or allowing borrowing.
Or some kind of mixture.

wow... the ultimate dream for my books!

However, I don't have the means for the trust/charity for any of that.

I have contacted a few colleges that had SciFi classes, and to a one, they didn't want the books OR they would cherry pick through them.

I'm still at odds what to do with 4,100+ books and custom made shelves.

I dont have the means at this point either, but i hopefully have the time to grow and save for it.

This thread when i first read it and then again your reply just now did start another thought growing in my head....

What if GoodReads users banded together and pooled their resources?

For a start, it looks like at least 5 people in this thread are from the US. That makes low cost shipping to a shared location a relatively cheap possibility.

Sort of an update. Now have almost 5,000 books.. and amazing enough, shelves to hold them all!.

Still no one person to leave the books. My little sister threatened to use the books to build a cremation bonfire for me. I still talk to her by the way.

Still would love ideas or even non related thoughts on where to leave a large collection of books ( SciFi in my case)

yet another update! 5,300+ books! Still have shelves to hold them all too.

A new suggestion as to where to leave my collection after I pass. Not really a mental hospital, but those places where the hold a person to "evaluate" them. They could be there from a week to a few months. And I'm told they don't really have all that much to do.

I still have the hope that a younger person would want and be able to have the whole collection. My family's kids don't. Shelves go with the setup... 29 feet of shelves in 14 units of varying width. And of course my copy of Readerware software that tracks/catalogs the whole kit-and-kabudla