The small bookcase is mine!

[sniffnoy]

Well so Bit came back for their books, along with another person... who must have taken another 25 books or so. :O

So, um, the small bookcase is now truly clear. And the highest shelf on the tall bookcase is now clear as well. As for the second-highest -- 11 books to next clear! (Some of those are big books though. So the number may at some point increase before it hits zero, as I swap those books for more numerous but smaller books coming from other shelves.)

Who knows, maybe soon we'll have given away enough books that we can fix the bookshelf without going backward... (probably not that soon though)

Comments

[pklemica]

How do you communicate which bookshelves have stuff up for grabs, once you start having bookcases of your own with what is presumably your stuff you'd like to keep? How does the culture of the house change as you run out of give-away books?

[sniffnoy]

Interesting questions :D

In the past it's just been, like, we try to tell every new person about the bookcases, indicating which ones you can take from. I don't think I've really seen people get it wrong and think they can take from Geoff's bookcases, although people certainly occasionally aren't sure and ask about those ones and we have to tell them no those are Geoff's. :P (Nobody tries to take from my old bookcase -- which I'm still using, the small bookcase wasn't enough to fit quite everything -- on account of it's just way too inconvenient. :P )

This is the first time one of the bookcases has moved from free-books to someone's-books (and realistically will probably be the last time until someone new moves in, there's no longer a real need to reclaim more space), so I put a sign on it to indicate that it's mine and you can't take books home from it. :P People are used to being able to take from that shelf, I figured I better put some sort of indicator! Of course someone who's been here recently would likely notice the difference regardless, but someone who hasn't been here recently likely wouldn't.

I guess back when Tim and Ray and Grace moved out and left their books behind in the first place, those shelves transitioned from their-books to free-books! But as long as I've lived here that's never been indicated in any way, just, we try to tell every new visitor about it. :P

I don't think it really affects the culture much, we still have plenty! I did a count last night, it's a little over 300. Of course I'm going to continue to encourage people to take the books, although there's definitely less motivation for it now! Still -- there's still 11 more books on that top shelf that can be hard for people to reach, so it would be nice to not have to have books up there; and then I would like to clear enough space that we can... wait I talked about this already a few entries ago. :P

So yeah for now things are the same except that my books are actually somewhere I can fricking get at them without it being a giant pain! :)

[pklemica]

realizing how incomprehensible it is to me that people would just... leave hundreds of books behind. My books are my main comfort objects, I miss the ones that have been lent out and never returned or otherwise misplaced over the years, the idea of moving and not taking them with me is physically painful. I'd rather leave everything else and take the books

well ok, everything else inanimate. The cats get ultimate priority, but like, if my books had feelings it'd be a tough call who comes first

[sniffnoy]

Yeah idk. I get the vague impression that Tim was like, deliberately trying to leave behind his previous life or something when he moved out. No idea why Ray and Grace left their books behind too though. If I ever encounter them I may ask...