On Sun, 30 Aug 2015 18:10:18 GMT, Doug White
wrote:

" wrote in
:

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 7:20:12 AM UTC-4, George wrote:


Same problem. I have been donating mine to the local library and
taking a tax deduction. They have a book fair a couple of times a
year so I have the hope they go to a good home.

I help at the local friends of the library book sale ( and get to see
what is for sale before the general public ). But the sad thing is
that they have no technical books at the sale. They do not believe
anyone wants old tech books.

I think it is far better to either sell them your self thru ABE or
Alibris. Or look on ABE and Alibris and find a seller who is close to
you. They may not give you anything or not very much, but the books
will go to someone that wants them.

If you do sell them yourself , let us know so we can consider buying
some.

You can also sell books through Amazon. My wife has sold quite a number
of obscure technical books & college texts there. Powells also used to
specialize in technical books.

There are some places you can donate books to that promise they won't
pulp them. Some places ship them to developing countries.

My father was an applied mathematician at Los Alamos, and had a huge
library of technical books. It took years, but we managed to find homes
for most of them through universities.

I am in the process of retiring, but I will be consulting for a while.
I have a large collection of RF & microwave books I just dragged home
from my office, some of which I had to search for used. There's a lot
of "lost art" in the field that isn't included in newer books. Even
some of the "classic" books that are still reprinted have a lot of
errors. I have a marked up copy of one such book that is irreplaceable,
as well as a lengthy errata for another book. That is also info that
isn't on-line anywhere.

I also have 35 years worth of articles ripped out of trade journals,
many of which are no longer around, and thus not on-line either.
There's also a lot of good design & application info that used to be in
the back of vendor catalogs. With all the consolidation in the
industry, most of those companies no longer exist, and the application
info has vanished with them. My plan is to scan these a bit at a time
so they are in a searchable form. I've been asked to give occasional
guest lectures at a local engineering school, and they will be very
handy for preparing class material. At least once it is in digital
form, it will be easier to pass along.

Doug White

Look up your book titles on this site before you get rid of them.
Some old books are very valuable.
http://www.bookfinder.com/