Community archive

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Suggestions needed for disposing REALLY old books

0 helpful
13 replies

by onbliss

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Over the years I have managed to collect some technical books. Some of the technologies for which I bought the books are less in demand (probably obsolete). For example: Visual Basic 5.0, SQL Server 6.5, Oracle 7 etcetra.

In other cases I no longer work in the some of the technological areas. For example: Java. I like to hold on to some Java books though.

I have been selling some of these books at eBay for about $5. And it costs me atleast $2 to $3 in Media Mail. I rather give it free to someone who really needs them.

I am ready to give some of those books to students, schools or anybody without incurring lots of shipping costs. But I am doubtful if they would really need such old books.

Is there no other alternative, than dumping them into recycle bins? What do you guys do?

13 replies

by bfilmfan

Recycling them is a good idea.

Then they can use them to print more books and hopefully something we want to read like a good Batman comic.

by jdclyde

Delta College in mid Michigan is part of an effort to help places like Kenya.

They send old tech over there because it is better to have old tech than new tech.

Check with your local community college to see if they have such a program in place, and you will be doing something that clears your old junk out AND helps someone else.

by raelayne

Recycle. Mulch them into your garden. Build furniture with them. Or keep them and wait until they're antiques, at which point you can sell them on eBay Gallactica for enough to make it worth your trouble.

by m_a_r_k

If you like this sort of thing, some day they'll have a lot of sentimental value to you. When Oracle 23 or VB.NET 2018 is released, you'll get a kick out of thumbing through these old books and remembering how things were in the olden days.

Coincidentally, just today I came across a National Geographic from 1972 at my friend's house. Yep, you heard right. 1972! He was cleaning out some "junk" and he was gonna toss it in the garbage. I convinced him to keep it. You wouldn't believe the kinds of animals that existed in 1972. The tigers looked a bit like a sabre-toothed tiger. The elephants looked mastodons. Fish had legs. And the people... holy crap...can you say Neanderthal? Scanning the pages of that 34-year old magazine was like taking a ride in a magical time machine. It was a fun ride. So keep your old books!

by jdgretz

1972 isn't old - heck, I'd just gotten back from Viet Nam and was enjoying being a member of the 1st Cav Division at Ft. Hood, TX (being anywhere where they were not trying to shoot my helicopter out of the air was a nice change).

I remember looking at old National Geographics that were all in B&W as the editor didn't believe in color photography at the time.

by onbliss

...have a sentimental value. And, I do like to go through some of the old stuff. But, nearly a decade ago I had to trash so many of my old stuff because af a big move.
But these days I hardly get any time to thumb through old books, there are plenty of books that I have from library and that I bought, that still have to be read.

by jdclyde

I had thrown out a bunch of old lotus 1-2-3 v2.2 books as I will never find myself teaching that class again.

Can you say wordperfect v5? Out of here!

Even a few Dbase IV. (shudder)

I kept the DOS book just because it was cool. :D
I even brought into work my Computer Users Dictionary by QUE publishing, 3rd edition.
"Dozens of Windows 3.1 & Multimedia Tips!"

I leaf through that for a laugh.... B-)

by onbliss

...book. Yeah, I remember having a thick book on DOS 5.0. I had a book on Turbo C++, like we used to do in school, I had jacketed it with a nice brown canvas paper....scribbled the title over it....but never read it though :p

by mickster269

I still have my pristine copy of OS2 Warp ver. 3.

I was promised that it would be the next great operating system, and would bury Microsoft.

I'm just waiting for the rest of y'all to realize it, and join with me in the Revolution!

by Member 25348569

We still have a couple of systems running a SAN to SAN transfer across ATM so I still have the manuals. I've just checked and the edges of the pages are turning brown!

Never actually openened them, though.

by faradhi

In older medical equipment. I have seen it used for nuclear medicine machines and other equipment. That is because when you are Zapping someone with radiation, you do not want a blue screen.

by onbliss

I remember using a few machines with OS2 loaded. I am not sure of the version (it was about a decade ago). The default desktop color was greenish/teal. For a while it was considered pretty cool at the small startup I was working in. We were still using Windows 3.11 at that time.

You must have seen the way we laughed when Windows 95 was launched and its UI, at first glance, looked like OS2.

This discussion is closed to new replies.