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The great enbookening
Huh, I never posted about this, did I? So Kappa finally moved in back in January, and with her, many boxes of books. This month she finally unpacked most of those boxes. (There's still two remaining, to be handled at some undetermined future date.) There had been preparations earlier -- she and Geoff had gotten new bookshelves to replace Geoff's old bookshelves in the main room, that had been kind of falling apart for years. One of the old bookshelves was thrown out, the other I ended up taking into my room.
But now finally it was happening, the unpacking of the books. The idea was that Kappa and Geoff's book collections would be merged, with the new books going onto what had been Geoff's bookshelves -- whether the ones in the main room or the ones in their room. But -- as was anticipated -- in merging the collections, many duplicates were found. Where do you think these went?
That's right. They went on the giveaway shelves.
Now, which shelves those are had to change. The sheer number of books unpacked was such that Geoff and Kappa ended up taking over all the shelves along the west wall -- my books got kicked out to the bookshelf that was now in my room. So did my board games on the bookshelf in the corner. Now the west wall is all Geoff and Kappa's books, and the east wall is all books being given away. (Due to the change, I decided to finally label the shelves of free books.)
It wasn't just duplicates from between Geoff and Kappa that got put on the giveaway shelves, though. On unpacking her books, Kappa found various ones that she actually just didn't want anymore, so those ended up on the giveaway shelves too. Meanwhile, in preparation for the unpacking, Geoff had had to actually organize his book collection... and in doing so, turned up some duplicates purely within it! (And some books he decided he didn't want, either.) So that's more for the free shelves!
Of course, putting books on the free shelves doesn't actually immediately save any space -- it only does so once someone takes them. Maybe once enough books are taken, I'll be able to move my own books back out into the main room. But that'll take a while.
Prior to the deduplication, the number of books on the giveaway shelves sat at 137. After, it sat at... I don't know, I didn't even try counting. See, among the books being given away due to inter-spouse duplication was a nearly-complete set of Discworld books. These got placed on the top shelf of the tall bookcase behind the chair, double-stacked. I didn't want to deal with the inconvenience of counting that, so I didn't.
Now of course, these new books are going rather faster than the old ones. After all, the books still on the shelves before this happened were subject to adverse selection; of the books we were giving away, these were the 137 that people wanted the least. By contrast, the bulk of the ones being newly added were because they were books that two distinct people had bought! (Also, it's a lot of fantasy and science fiction, whereas the 137 that were there prior were heavy on abstruse philosophy.)
In particular, those Discworld books lasted on the shelves less than a week before Zvi and Laura took the collection in its entirety. After that, counting became practical. The new total -- noting that when Zvi and Laura took the Discworld books, that same night some other people took other books, so this shouldn't be taken as "the grand total minus Discworld" -- was 222.
Two weeks later we're down to 212. And two of the books taken have been ones that were already on the shelves prior to this -- perhaps having better books to give away encourages people to explore the other ones more thoroughly? We'll see how low it goes!
But now finally it was happening, the unpacking of the books. The idea was that Kappa and Geoff's book collections would be merged, with the new books going onto what had been Geoff's bookshelves -- whether the ones in the main room or the ones in their room. But -- as was anticipated -- in merging the collections, many duplicates were found. Where do you think these went?
That's right. They went on the giveaway shelves.
Now, which shelves those are had to change. The sheer number of books unpacked was such that Geoff and Kappa ended up taking over all the shelves along the west wall -- my books got kicked out to the bookshelf that was now in my room. So did my board games on the bookshelf in the corner. Now the west wall is all Geoff and Kappa's books, and the east wall is all books being given away. (Due to the change, I decided to finally label the shelves of free books.)
It wasn't just duplicates from between Geoff and Kappa that got put on the giveaway shelves, though. On unpacking her books, Kappa found various ones that she actually just didn't want anymore, so those ended up on the giveaway shelves too. Meanwhile, in preparation for the unpacking, Geoff had had to actually organize his book collection... and in doing so, turned up some duplicates purely within it! (And some books he decided he didn't want, either.) So that's more for the free shelves!
Of course, putting books on the free shelves doesn't actually immediately save any space -- it only does so once someone takes them. Maybe once enough books are taken, I'll be able to move my own books back out into the main room. But that'll take a while.
Prior to the deduplication, the number of books on the giveaway shelves sat at 137. After, it sat at... I don't know, I didn't even try counting. See, among the books being given away due to inter-spouse duplication was a nearly-complete set of Discworld books. These got placed on the top shelf of the tall bookcase behind the chair, double-stacked. I didn't want to deal with the inconvenience of counting that, so I didn't.
Now of course, these new books are going rather faster than the old ones. After all, the books still on the shelves before this happened were subject to adverse selection; of the books we were giving away, these were the 137 that people wanted the least. By contrast, the bulk of the ones being newly added were because they were books that two distinct people had bought! (Also, it's a lot of fantasy and science fiction, whereas the 137 that were there prior were heavy on abstruse philosophy.)
In particular, those Discworld books lasted on the shelves less than a week before Zvi and Laura took the collection in its entirety. After that, counting became practical. The new total -- noting that when Zvi and Laura took the Discworld books, that same night some other people took other books, so this shouldn't be taken as "the grand total minus Discworld" -- was 222.
Two weeks later we're down to 212. And two of the books taken have been ones that were already on the shelves prior to this -- perhaps having better books to give away encourages people to explore the other ones more thoroughly? We'll see how low it goes!