![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorothean posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
unclutterSo, lots of us are having trouble uncluttering our books.
Now, I have about 900 books myself, so depending on the level of simplicity you're going for here you might not be interested in my advice, but I have thought about why I own every book I have, and there are several hundred for which I didn't have an adequate explanation that I don't have anymore.
There are two websites that have really helped me with this. I'm sure some of you know about them already but I thought a post about them wouldn't hurt.
LibraryThing. This is a site for cataloguing your books. You can enter them manually, search by ISBN for books that are new enough, or (for lots of books with ISBNs) use a barcode scanner. Once you've entered them, you can tag them (just like dreamwidth entries) and put them in different collections (for example, I have a collection of books that are actually on shelves in my apartment, and another for books that are in storage at my parents' house). You can also discuss books with other members, post reviews, and view interesting arrangements of statistics about your books and everybody's books. LibraryThing has contests (usually involving taking photographs of your books), an Early Reviewer program in which you can sign up to win ARCs in exchange for posting your review on LibraryThing, and a Secret Santa exchange (more on that at the end).
The reason LibraryThing has been good for my decluttering efforts is that cataloguing all my books (without a barcode scanner; yes, that required a lot of free time) forced me to look at each of them individually and think, at least for a few seconds, about why I still had it. When I tagged everything, I thought about it again. And then, since I started using LibraryThing as a way to list all the books I was reading, it was natural to use it as well to track my to-be-readmonstrosity pile, and that led to further reconsideration and culling. I got rid of so many books.
LibraryThing is free until you catalogue more than 200 books. Then it's $10 per year or $25 for ever.
BookMooch. This is a site for swapping books. Upload a list of books you don't want (again by barcode search or by manual entry). People can search for books they do want, and if they want yours, they give you a point and you mail the book to them. It's very simple, but with lots of ways to ensure that everybody's happy with the transaction, from the ability to describe the condition of the book and state how long it will be before you can send it, to a quick but mandatory feedback step. I think the only major drawback is that it's a U.S.-based site, so that's where most of the books are, and a lot of people (including me) opt out of mailing books internationally because of the expense. There's a system in place to ameliorate this but I imagine it's still frustrating to non-U.S. members.
BookMooch is completely free, except for the postage of course.
BookMooch has helped me get rid of almost all of the books I didn't want that weren't extremely heavy or worth something at the used book store. I have sent away 359 books (!!!) since joining in 2007. (I would link to my profile, but it happens to use my real name.) Of course, this means that I could have acquired 359 new books ... but I haven't. Er, I've only acquired 125. (Some of which I then sent away again!) Anyway, I really recommend this site, especially if you are flush with mass market paperbacks (especially these ones) and can afford the postage. (If you're not sure, I recommend that you only list a few books at a time to avoid having to send a dozen off at once. Some people note in their profiles that they will only accept x number of mooches per month due to budget reasons.)
I know there are other book cataloguing sites, like GoodReads, and other book swapping sites, like PaperBack Swap, but I haven't used those.
Anyway! If you've made it down to the bottom of this post, you might be the sort of person who would enjoy having a lifetime membership to LibraryThing. Their Secret Santa (actually called SantaThing, of course) went horribly wrong in 2010 -- lots of the books got stuck in the mail during the winter snows. LibraryThing, imo, has been very proactive about listening to people's complaints and providing information about the problem, and is now doing various things to compensate, including giving out codes for lifetime memberships. So I have one. If you would like it, please comment and tell me your email address, preferably with some kind of ecstatic statement about how you can't wait to catalogue all of your books. If more than one person wants it, I'll do a random drawing over the weekend.
Now, I have about 900 books myself, so depending on the level of simplicity you're going for here you might not be interested in my advice, but I have thought about why I own every book I have, and there are several hundred for which I didn't have an adequate explanation that I don't have anymore.
There are two websites that have really helped me with this. I'm sure some of you know about them already but I thought a post about them wouldn't hurt.
LibraryThing. This is a site for cataloguing your books. You can enter them manually, search by ISBN for books that are new enough, or (for lots of books with ISBNs) use a barcode scanner. Once you've entered them, you can tag them (just like dreamwidth entries) and put them in different collections (for example, I have a collection of books that are actually on shelves in my apartment, and another for books that are in storage at my parents' house). You can also discuss books with other members, post reviews, and view interesting arrangements of statistics about your books and everybody's books. LibraryThing has contests (usually involving taking photographs of your books), an Early Reviewer program in which you can sign up to win ARCs in exchange for posting your review on LibraryThing, and a Secret Santa exchange (more on that at the end).
The reason LibraryThing has been good for my decluttering efforts is that cataloguing all my books (without a barcode scanner; yes, that required a lot of free time) forced me to look at each of them individually and think, at least for a few seconds, about why I still had it. When I tagged everything, I thought about it again. And then, since I started using LibraryThing as a way to list all the books I was reading, it was natural to use it as well to track my to-be-read
LibraryThing is free until you catalogue more than 200 books. Then it's $10 per year or $25 for ever.
BookMooch. This is a site for swapping books. Upload a list of books you don't want (again by barcode search or by manual entry). People can search for books they do want, and if they want yours, they give you a point and you mail the book to them. It's very simple, but with lots of ways to ensure that everybody's happy with the transaction, from the ability to describe the condition of the book and state how long it will be before you can send it, to a quick but mandatory feedback step. I think the only major drawback is that it's a U.S.-based site, so that's where most of the books are, and a lot of people (including me) opt out of mailing books internationally because of the expense. There's a system in place to ameliorate this but I imagine it's still frustrating to non-U.S. members.
BookMooch is completely free, except for the postage of course.
BookMooch has helped me get rid of almost all of the books I didn't want that weren't extremely heavy or worth something at the used book store. I have sent away 359 books (!!!) since joining in 2007. (I would link to my profile, but it happens to use my real name.) Of course, this means that I could have acquired 359 new books ... but I haven't. Er, I've only acquired 125. (Some of which I then sent away again!) Anyway, I really recommend this site, especially if you are flush with mass market paperbacks (especially these ones) and can afford the postage. (If you're not sure, I recommend that you only list a few books at a time to avoid having to send a dozen off at once. Some people note in their profiles that they will only accept x number of mooches per month due to budget reasons.)
I know there are other book cataloguing sites, like GoodReads, and other book swapping sites, like PaperBack Swap, but I haven't used those.
Anyway! If you've made it down to the bottom of this post, you might be the sort of person who would enjoy having a lifetime membership to LibraryThing. Their Secret Santa (actually called SantaThing, of course) went horribly wrong in 2010 -- lots of the books got stuck in the mail during the winter snows. LibraryThing, imo, has been very proactive about listening to people's complaints and providing information about the problem, and is now doing various things to compensate, including giving out codes for lifetime memberships. So I have one. If you would like it, please comment and tell me your email address, preferably with some kind of ecstatic statement about how you can't wait to catalogue all of your books. If more than one person wants it, I'll do a random drawing over the weekend.
