[todd8]

I have a large library of technical books (accumulated over 50 years). Every 10 years or so I feel like I'm running out of space (5000 books or so) and I round up my oldest most out-of-date CS books, like books on pascal programming or LISP manuals from 1971. I fill up boxes of a couple hundred books and take them to a local Half-Price Books bookstore that sells used books. It is always so disappointing. I end up with pennies for each book. So I avoid going for another 10 years until I forget about my previous attempt to sell my out of date books. I've also made library donations of books I felt were still useful (I end up with duplicates sometimes because I forget that I've already purchased a book and shelved it somewhere that I don't see it until after I purchase a second copy.) Again, it's frustrating, most libraries really don't want very technical books.

I can't expect anyone to want an old manual for LISP programming so now I'm holding onto my old books because it's not worth dragging them to the used bookstore. And, every so often, I will go back and look at them. There was a discussion on HN involving assembly language and machine architecture, it caused me to pull out my old book on CDC 6600 assembler.

In another 10 years I'll forget this and try to sell my used books again.