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Library

My library is a labor of love.

My friends and family might see it as thousands of “labors of love,” schlepped up and down too many flights of stairs, in and out of too many apartments, across town and even across the country, on too many moving days.

My library is thousands of hours of seeking and learning. It is hundreds of volumes each in philosophy, history, and the social sciences, and in technology, physics, and math, and on mountaineering, music, and wine.

I collected most of it in the 1990s, before the World Wide Web and browsers, search, and the participation age, and before MIT OpenCourseWare, Google Book Search, and all the rest.

I now have a slate-form tablet PC, a super-light XO laptop whose screen you can read in bright daylight, a touchscreen smart-mobile “phone,” and an oversized monitor on a desk in my home office for when I’m tired from all that mobility. I have terabytes of space at home and more than I could use online, with more easily found, free, interesting content than I can experience in one lifetime. Why would I keep thousands of books?

My wife and I are slowly giving away most of my, or rather, our library. She has encouraged me for years to find schools and give. We have given away enough stacks and boxes that the library is near 2,000 volumes.

I may have acquired a few dozen more in the same time. I am somewhere in the middle of a dozen or so now, and probably will be in the middles of a dozen or so for the rest of my life. Still, I borrowed a book from my neighbor last week and still, I do finish books. Last night I finished Obama’s Dreams from My Father and tonight I am starting The Audacity of Hope, both gifts from my wife, both on paper.

I am a Lifetime Member of LibraryThing — a site which helps you catalog your books. After spending time with my friendly old fire hazards and LibraryThing, I know what to give and prospective beneficiaries know if they’re interested.

Thanks also to LibraryThing, below you can search my library, browse it randomly, or browse by tag: