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Pixelante
Mar 16, 2006

You people will by God act like a team, or at least like people who know each other, or I'll incinerate the bunch of you here and now.
I hate to tell you, but most of them are going to end up in a recycling bin. My parents had a massive library, and even after I let everyone have a free rummage, offered academic material to the local university, and tried to donate to the library, most of it got heaved out on the lawn and shovelled into dumpsters.

It sucks, but most of the time, the value of books is less than the space they occupy. Dumping them on charities is a lovely move because it gives them a whole lot of work for pennies-worth of sales.

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Pixelante
Mar 16, 2006

You people will by God act like a team, or at least like people who know each other, or I'll incinerate the bunch of you here and now.
It is really, really hard to get rid of books--physically, emotionally, and mentally--so here's some practical advice:

Start sorting on a shelf-by-shelf basis, not a box-by-box basis. If you start with boxes, you'll hurt your back, have dust allergy attacks, and get overwhelmed by adding underfoot clutter to what's in front of you. I ended up with a sinus infection that took two rounds of antibiotics to clear. (The black mould didn't help.)

Get coloured tape. I used "Duck" tape from the craft store. It was nice having rolls that were big enough to wear like bracelets so I didn't lose them in the process.

Find a shelf that's all things you want to get rid of, and put a stripe of red (or whatever) tape across it. If there are a couple things you want to keep, move them to another shelf, and put a stripe of green across it. Work your way along by categorizing each shelf, shifting things into Red or Green shelves as you go. I added Blue for things my brother wanted to keep, and had him move the stuff he wanted to those designated shelves.

You can make a lot of progress rather quickly that way, and if you change your mind about something, you don't need to rummage in boxes to find it again. Essentially, you're separating the task of deciding from the task of packing. Once all the shelves are clearly toss or keep, you can bring in boxes. I had to hire help with the house, and the colour coding made it easy to step back and let them handle it.

I also used that code with the rest of the house--furniture, decorations, closets. Red went out (one way or another, depending on how easy it was to donate), Green was shipped to my apartment, Blue was shipped to my brother's.

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