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Ask HN: What do you do with old textbooks?

8 points by BrianB ↗ HN
What do you do with old textbooks? I studied maths and physics and a bunch of other things and have a special fondness for the books that I have been carrying around for the last 20 years. I also haven't looked inside them in the last 20 years. Should I just dump them at a local library? Recycle? Burn in a cathartic bon fire?

7 comments

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rolph
i have scanned and stored my textbooks in digital form, the hard copies of most recent editions remain on shelf.

i donate to homeschoolers that have interest and flair for technical subjects

rahimnathwani
Did you build a book scanning station, or cut the spines and use a sheet feeder, or just spend ages doing it?
rolph
one book at a time as aquired, scanner taken out of stock plastic and mounted to allow the book to be placed with the spine stradding a 90 degree edge.

once the dexterity is burned in it can go quite fast. havnt had the motivation to deal with a page turner but that would be the way to go if dont want to spend a long time manually.

tsjq
> Should I just dump them at a local library?

yes.

many libraries esp the ones at univ/colleges have shelves / bins for donation books. I found some very helpful books from a library 12 yrs ago.

rahimnathwani
Don't burn them please. Better to donate them to Oxfam (UK), Goodwill (USA) or a charity of your choice at Community Thrift (San Francisco).