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Ask Slashdot: Prioritizing Saleable Used Computer Books?
g01d4 writes "I volunteer at a used bookstore that supports the local library. One of my tasks is to sort book donations. For > 5-year-old computer books the choices typically are to save it for sale (fifty cents soft cover, one dollar hardback), pack it, e.g. for another library's bookstore, put it on the free cart, or toss it in the recycle bin. I occasionally dumpster dive the recycle bin to 'rescue' books that I don't think should be pulped. Recently I found a copy of PostgresSQL Essential Reference (2002) and Programming Perl (1996). Would you have left them to RIP? Obviously we have very limited space, 20 shelf feet (storage + sale) for STEM. What criteria would you use when sorting these types of books?"
Although there are many good, reliable books that are several years old (on computer principles, logical logic and whatnot), you'll probably be better off sorting by year.
... but not available.
You'll end up putting a few great books farther down the line than you otherwise would, but sorting by publication date will ensure that the vast majority of the books are still relevant.
If you've got time, sort by quality. You're the expert, though, and your time is limited. Would you prefer something that is good enough - and done, or something that's perfect
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
You've already put more into it than it's worth, but if you really want to know, find the local big book store's buyback locale and walk it in there. They have estimates for everything, and for what they don't have, they can speculate, but at that point it's usually due another trip to the dumpster/recycler.
Keep anything you think might sell. Track by acquisition date. If it's not gone in X months, throw it on the free cart. Another month, toss it.
"X" depends on your turnover, space, and how many books are coming in. Since you're space limited, get rid of the oldest ones first.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Recently I found a copy of PostgresSQL Essential Reference (2002) and Programming Perl (1996). Would you have left them to RIP?
When I replace a book with a newer edition I set aside the older edition. Sooner or later a relative, friend, co-worker, someone will express an interest in learning to program or learning some new area. My old K&R The C Programming Language, Foley and van Dam Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics, etc all found new homes this way. Why toss out a book that someone curious might want to take a look at?
A lot of technical books end up being sold on ebay or through Amazon's used book dealer network. If you give stuff to Goodwill, chances are it will end up in one of those places if it has any resale value.
I'd say the reference book has likely become outdated and current info is easily found on the internet.
But books like the Perl Camel book - much more than merely a reference - those are valuable for long after their topic is upgraded.
My 2 cents. Good luck...
I have a real cool book on "Fortran for Dummies". Does anybody want to buy it? I used to have another one about learning COBOL, but I forgot what happened to that.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
This is my opinion.
Java--anything that doesn't say Java2 keep.
Spring -- anything
Application servers--keep anything.
Anything Windows--pitch. Anybody buying used books won't be able to afford Visual Studio.
Anything A+ -- pitch. Don't encourage that dead end.
Anything Networking--pitch, another dead end.
Anything design related--keep.
Patent lawyers trying to bust patents from the mid 1990s live on this stuff. Call your local friendly intellectual property law firm and see if you can unload the whole batch. They'd probably pay much more than $1.00/book.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
Save anything that is foundational or fundamental to any particular field. Any book that continues to be cited academically or has increased in value on the used market should probably be kept.
My local public library system foolishly trashed some true classics in algorithms, graphics, and fractals simply because they were old. Now all you find in the stacks are books focused on instruction for specific software applications, books which are certain to be obsolete in a few years.
+0 Meh
My guess is that books not on specific tools or versions retain their value much longer. Titles like Design Patterns, Network programming, Computer Graphics are more likely to be useful after a couple of years. Also check if the editions are used in any university courses.
When asked why, the answer is almost always: "It's 2014".
We worked really hard in the 70s on so you wouldn't need books. Everything I did was documented with roff/runoff. This begat, in a roundabout way SCRIBE which begat SGML which begat HTML.
I've programmed C since 1974 and still do, daily. I've bought K&R, twice (and have touched a mimeographed copy dmr made pencil notes in belonging to Jim Fleming) and the O'Reily MySql book to get a fucking update statement right in 1997. Fifty bucks for one page. Other than that I just haven't found a need for them. And I've done pretty much everything.
In the post-Internet era what is it exactly you can't learn about computers without a book. I don't even want to hear it's "easier". I'm used to not doing it and fins it much less efficient, especially for this kind of stuff where I'm one click away from a local file as opposed to go find the book, find the page...
Read K&R, Read Knuth. The rest you can easily live without.
(Skip the TeX stuff though, he went insane at some point)
Need Mercedes parts ?
I have some computer science / theory books that are twenty years old and still quite valuable. Those include Cod on relational database design theory. My Visual Basic 6 books are trash because they cover a specific, outdated version of the software.
Thinking about it further, not only are the good old books theory oriented, the ones that come to mind on authored by the originators of the topic - Cod & Date, K&R, etc. The thoughts of the founding fathers of a discipline are always relevant.
My Local library sells any books donated to them so they can use that money to buy more books.
Go figure. They got a book, so instead of loaning it out, they sell it for less then it costs to buy another book. Great system.
Be seeing you...
K&R C and the Folley/van Dam book are classics of computing. Those represent a tiny chunk of the used book market though, not really representative of the average old book. Books that have later editions at all are generally a good sign of quality. It's reasonable to bin those separately from the one-shot books and prefer keeping them around. By that standard, an old "Programming Perl" *might* still be useful to someone who just doesn't want to spring for a newer version, while "PostgreSQL Essential Reference" heads for recycling. Having read each, those would both be reasonable calls.
Information professionals train for this reason - they are the experts in managing library stocks, and if you are sending things to other libraries, this means you should be looking at this in more of a macro than micro environment. Engage a properly trained librarian, and stop trying to second guess what you should be doing, or go and invest and go get trained up yourself.
I should add the main criteria I use are 1) is it (programming language, operating system, application) still popular and 2) whether it has changed much over the years. I figure it's an inexpensive way for someone to teach themselves the basics w/o having to stare at a screen. If they're able to get up to speed with the book they should be able to handle the changes or new features in later versions.
I used to work at a used bookstore, and I was in charge of our computer books section. My experience was that programming books would sell the best - I would put them on the shelf, no matter how old they were, and they would sell. You'd be surprised to see that some still look up for $10-20 on Amazon too, even at over 10 years old. Java & C/C++ sold the best, but they would all sell, I always had empty room on those shelves. The next best sellers were database/server books, then recent Windows OS/recentish OS X/any Linux books. Older OS books (especially older Windows books), most application books, and most how-to-use-a-computer/internet/laptop/etc books did not sell well unless they were less than a year old.
So I would have also rescued your two books - I think they were good choices, and are likely to sell even though they are old. I would use the above criteria for determining what to keep, and if space is an issue, I'd limit some of the OS/application/textbook sort of stuff to 2-3 years back instead of 5 rather than get rid of older programming & server/database books.
So, Fahrenheit 451 is reality, with a twist. Instead of paying firemen to burn books, we have people willing to volunteer to pulp books. Who could have predicted a mere sixty years ago that the people of the early 21st century would have such an intense hatred of knowledge to be eager to destroy it for free.
The Internet Archive will scan them for you; see https://archive.org/scanning.
Could you whip up a little tool that would scan the barcode, query the item on Amazon, and see what the sales rank is? There you'd have market telling you what is in demand and what is not. I'd bet (not looking now) the Knuth books have a decent used sales rank while "Learning Filemaker 2.1" does not.
Find your threshold(s) and have the tool tell the clerk [shelve,sell,recycle].
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
These books are all just copies, not original manuscripts. And O'Reilly books were never a work of art as a medium. Be ruthless.
If you ever really do need an old edition of the Camel Book, it is available as a PDF download.
As for, K&R C and the Folley/van Dam book - well, some things are special cases. I still have mine. But as above, very few books are as important as those.
Dump anything that is titled "for Dummies" or "Learn $X in $Y days!"
Keep anything, no matter how old, from O'Reilly books.
I really want to see a way that old books (90's and early 2000) content get published for free under a license that allows derivative works like Creative Common Share Alike.
I contacted some author and almost everyone wants to release the content of their books for free, but this can not be possible since the copyright of the books belongs to the publishers.
The publishers are big companies and you don't even know to whom ask permission for this and some of them don't want to give anything from their IP. (I even tried once with MS Press by Twitter and never got an answer).
Do we have to wait a 100 (or something like that) years for the content to be public domain? or does anybody knows any trick on some publishers to open some of their content?
Welcome to the brown shirt society. It doesn't matter what you do, you are irrelevant. They will keep getting rid of the best books because they don't conform to their agenda. They will eventually get rid of you because you don't conform to their agenda. This is one of the reasons I will never use a library again. You can't do ANYTHING at a library without being tracked. All of the best books have been filtered, sanitized, and removed. What's left, why go? Thanks brown shirts for destroying libraries across the nation.
On the one hand, RIP 'cause they're obsolete. On the other hand, there's a lot of obsolete stuff still in use that will be in use for a long time. The trick is getting those obsolete books to the people maintaining those obsolete systems. The chances of someone needing a 90s reference book that you have walking into your bookstore are pretty slim. Maybe you can list them on ebay.
Most old books about a specific short-lived or rapidly-evolving technology are useless for training purposes but they can be valuable as historical artifacts.
Anything over 10 years old or anything that is a "1.0-version" book for a product that is more than a few years old and a few versions newer should be looked at from that angle before pulping.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The APPLE II BASIC programming manual by Jef Raskin currently goes for $52 and up on Amazon. A few years ago I found a late-'90s book on embedded systems programming that turned out to be in demand and later sold for about $100 on Amazon. So look up anything unusual, specific, or that might have nostalgia value there or on Bookfinder.com before you recycle them or sell them for a buck or two.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
If it's for either the current version of a technology or is for a technology that is version free - keep it. e.g. The Data compression book, and The Pragmatic Programmer are both 15 years old but are still great books that people could learn a lot from.
If it's for a technology that has had a newer version (or versions) released - probably bin it. Even a book a couple of years old will be massively out of for technologies that are advancing rapidly. e.g. a book on how to develop for iPhones that was released in say, late 2009, would be almost completely irrelevant now.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Sounds like a job for Wikipedia
I come here for the love
I collect books by the inventors of languades e.g. C++ by Stroustrop, C by Kernigan and Richie Pascal by (I forget the Swiss dude)... I feel these are worth while keeping just as references
If they really can't afford it, that's cool, but if the book is significantly outdated you could do more harm than good by having someone learn from it. For example, I would never give someone a book on Flash 3 development, since Flash has had a few major version bumps since then and anything they do in Flash nowadays will be in the new version of Flash/ActionScript, so they'd more than likely be wasting their time reading it compared to reading a modern edition. Programming Perl on the other hand is still quite relevant and useful today so it is a judgment call.
I actually don't even look for tech books in used bookstores anymore because it's next to impossible to find anything recent and relevant. However, if a used bookstore had them sorted by publish date that would DEFINITELY help!
These books have readership value, even if they are slightly obsolete. Caveat lector if they are on the free shelf. They are free advertisements for the products.
Although not (major) language inventors, I still see value in the writings of the Dutch dude and the Scandinavian-American dude . . .
Bassic may not be taught. But if you go under MS Visual basic, the code is still QBasic code. Also, when an author writes a book, if he or she is a PHD, then the chapters related to their thesis topic will be well written and rest are thrash. So, it becomes necessary to collect several books from different authors/publsihers and collect relevant information and make up your own booklet. This is very crucial for teaching and learning. So, instead of collecting junk, book library at home will be very useful for a long time to come. Also, most developing countries still use old editions and I found out that some Assian universities just copy (xerox) a old book and distribute it to its students. There is a definite market for the books we throw away. An entrepprenuer can create a good business.It is unfortunate we discard good food, books etc., without understanding the long term consequences. Most say the industry does not care, but some of the old programs can be rewritten in a new language as the underlying algorithms and procedures do not change. Ignorance is not bliss.
In the desert in Tucson, there's a massive airplane graveyard, where you can always go to find a part. I collect these used books in my business, and it's very frustrating. You can't afford to keep them in a rent-paying, heated building. But they always eventually go up in value. The solution is "speculative accumulation". Find a place in the desert, where they won't mold (they will anywhere else, unfortunately). And dig them up in 100 years. Look at what Kaypros and IBM 85 series monitors are selling for on ebay.
Gently reply
I would order them by Theoretical ones, because this books tend to long more years. For example: The books of Knuth and the books of Cormen. The books that talk about some technology, "expire" faster, most of people don't want to read a book about some programming language/Operative System of the 90's or before. After this big categories, you can follow the sugerence of other slashdotters.
Never heard of Richie Pascal? Wasn't he the one who sang La Bamba?
Hi g01d4,
Have a look at any good bookshop with a 'computing' section. Computer graphics and fundamental CS/math education books seem to have a few extra years in them.
Programming languages, mobile related, tax, product guides seem to have a life under a year with massive version drift.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It is even easier than that. Just go to Amazon and check the used book price for each book. If the book is selling for a dollar or less, there probably isn't any demand. Set whatever threshold is worth your time, whether that is $2 or $20, and toss the rest.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Use your smart phone and a price check app to get the latest prices from the internet. 5 seconds per book job done... use the date stamp they have at the front counter of the library to mark the date it was put one the shelf. Recycle the oldest as needed.
http://abstrusegoose.com/531
If you look at abebooks.com, search 'fractals' and then click 'first edition', they have a nice selection, a lot of them are under $5.
Repeat for other categories if you want. Good luck!
Check the average price on ebay, sort by the price where the book is typically sold. Dump the cheapest (or with no bids)
Get some mushroom spores for a couple of quid/dollars off the intarwebs. Soak your book in water for a day and seedit with spores. 2 or 3 weeks later and you have some yummy mushrooms to cook with. There are you tube vids if you need em.
1. I keep most programming books, in fact I still have 8086 assembly and qbasic on my shelf. My rational is they are as useable today as they were twenty years ago. However, books like HTML3 were recycled years ago.
2. Technical books get recycled after ten years. I.e. Windows 95 for retards, Ethernet the definitive guide, Astrisk, CNE study guide, Master Fedora 3, Absolute FreeBSD. However, a book like "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System" would be kept as it is a reference book ooperating system design... which fundamentally hasn't changed in thirty years.
3. I unconditionally keep all math, chem, electronics, science type reference books. It's not as if the laws do the universe are going to change anytime soon.
Basically, open the book up to a random section, if it is still relevant (I.e. calculus, electronics principles, x86 assembly programming, c programming, perl cookbook, etc.) keep it.
By working in a library probably you are probably already aware of the weeding process. Here https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/crew/index.html there is an in depth document about the whole process. My girlfriend works for the local library (they have approx 76000 volumes and 18000 population) here in Italy, and she used that document as a basis for the weeding process they did a few months ago.
At page 58 you have the definition of the CREW formulas and at page 62 there is the criteria for the 004 dewey class (computers), remember that those are guidelines and not rules, the document itself states that depending on the mission of your library the weeding criteria can be different, but at least you have a strong framework from which to start.
However, there are a few cases where the book may be more of interest from a collectable/historical perspective. I have a battered copy of Programming Perl, with a copyright date of 1991--it has the pink spine. About ten years ago, I took it to a talk by Larry Wall, and he signed books afterwards. In front of me were several folks with shrink-wrapped copies of the latest edition (I think it was the third or fourth by then). When he got to me, he opened to the title page, then paused. He flipped back to the cover, noted that it was first edition, and well loved. He smiled at me, then signed and stamped by book.
Unless you are both a domain expert who knows computing, and an enthusiast of historical computing, you're going to be hard-pressed to know what to keep and what to trash. I have books from the 70s and 80s which are still useful. I have books from last year I've discarded. I just happen to enjoy historical computing and have a lot of important books from the past. A lot of them are still relevant today. It's not like The UNIX Programming Environment is obsolete.
There's also the obsolete technology angle - if all libraries and personal collections throw out their obsolete technology books, what will people confronted by legacy code do for information? So you just got handed that old Delphi project, and ... ? Where do you go to brush up on Delphi, or learn it from scratch? (Or that old non-.NET ASP project, or whatever.)
There's also the history angle - something like Waite's HTML & CGI 3.2 book from the late 90s is absolutely fascinating to read just to see how people were trying to create a discipline of web development. Historically, this will be an important book some day as people study how early web pioneers struggled to bring order to the chaos.
Still, you can't keep everything. I know that too well!
Like "The art of software testing" from 1976. Or the C programming language by Kerningham and Richie. I would certainly save the classics.
*Everyone reaches for their copy of Programming Perl* Sure enough, mine is the Second Edition, published 1996, and I use it almost every day.
It's getting difficult to find any tech books at physical bookstores any more, not just used. And the gasoline costs + paying full retail price really make it hard to justify not firing up Amazon and one-clicking with prime.
Further, when Amazon fully offers guaranteed same-day delivery it's going to be even tougher to justify running out to bricks-and-mortar store to have a book in hand immediately. It will just depend on demand for what's worth stocking in their warehouses, i.e. whether the book you want is hard to get vs. a best seller. Knowing Amazon, they'll probably come up with a highly-professional instaprint system to solve that problem in the future, maybe at a somewhat higher cost to satisfy the publisher.
Of course the same threat to local stores applies to anything else Amazon is willing to stock in their warehouses for same-day availability. Doesn't look like bricks-and-mortar stores are going to get a break any time soon.
I find that a quick look at Amazon's used marketplace somewhat accurately shows the relevancy of used books. Those that have been vastly superseded by changing times may be less than $1, while others hold a surprisingly strong used value. Typically those with a strong used value are found to still have relevancy among practicing programmers. Of course take it with a grain of salt.
Honest question... are you in Iowa because I just got rid of those two books as part of my effort to remove all physical books from my house. Damn useful books in general but just no necessary anymore.
Don't throw it away if it is a book on theory. If it's "Learn xxx in 21 days" or "xxx version y.0", burn it with fire!
Historical texts such as Gosling's "Hot Java"? ~1995 are invaluable in learning the original motivations for the language; they will most likely be lost in the mists of time!
Classics like K&R C are invaluable and still useful today, and I've used them recently on ancient systems that don't have man pages.
I passed 3rd year transistor theory only by visiting an old book sale and buying a textbook from the 60s that explained the bits that the dodgey lecturer "forgot about". Transistors don't change. The bindings were so cracked I had to drill the book's pages and sew them together...
Books on design patterns are also still useful even if they are old e.g. Meyer's "Effective C++".
Please don't send a Word document when a text file will do the job.
By year is probably the most efficient way to filter. I would however split the lot between Theory, Syntax, and Technology. The former will have far longer relevance and the latter will have the least with the passing of time. Theory can last for decades, but technology is constantly overturning and starts to become irrelevant even a couple years after print.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
try to give it at a local school, or sell it at a local university? There are always people there that wants info, even if this is outdated [that does not mean this isnt useful anymore] Cheers!!!
I know this is hard to believe, but public libraries don't care about books if they're not circulating.** If no one's come and checked out the book in a year or two, then it goes to make space for books that people are actually reading. It's no different than when people get all pissed off because of some great literary classic gets mulched -- if people aren't reading it, it's a waste of shelf space.
Academic and research libraries have different rules for maintaining their collections. Typically, before 'deaccessioning', they'll check to see if copies are available through other libraries via ILL (inter-library loan). If they've got the last copy, they're more likely to hang onto it than if there are still 20 copies in their local system.
So ... if you care about a book, check it out, then return it. The library won't love you messing up their statistics, but every 'circ' (circulation) helps them to justify their budget.
** with some exception for their intentionally non-circulating materials.
(disclaimer : I volunteer at our local branch to deal with the book cart / sales until they're banned next week. Most programming & textbooks I sent to Books for International Goodwill)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
LOL. I figured he is fishy because his "12 Rules" is a list of 13 rules.
I've been collecting antique computers for years and the constant dilemma is that there's usually lots of hardware but not much in the way of manuals that describe how to actually use that hardware. You probably come across much older books/manuals than most would expect, back as far as the Apple IIs and Commodores. Personally, I value the manuals and books as much or more than the hardware they refer to. This doesn't answer your question but you might want to search out some collecting sites to see if anyone hoards this stuff. Vintage Computers in San Fran, not sure if they're still around, and others would be very interested, I think, but the problem remains how to get the two things together. Thanks for the question, I hope you find a solution.