Is there a future for old unwanted books?

[G6Tanuki]

The one big thing that PDFs etc. have which books/magazines don't have but which PDFs etc. do is a decent search facility!

Presented with a 300-page book or 100+ page magazine and wanting to find where Gunn Diodes are referenced: I can find the references much faster in a PDF than by using the paper index.

[russell_w_b]

Originally Posted by G6Tanuki

The one big thing that PDFs etc. have which books/magazines don't have but which PDFs etc. do is a decent search facility!

Books are great! Especially old ones: the smell, the feel, the ability to annotate in pencil, read whilst eating one's tea, etc...

But... You're absolutely correct. The number of times something comes up on a forum (say) and I think: 'I know that! It's just upstairs in the office!' Then, after half-an-hour's fruitless searching when I realise the nugget of info isn't where I thought it was...

I can't help but marvel at and be grateful for those involved with the likes of 'American Radio History' and those universities and other bodies who publish searchable historical documents in PDF.

I've scanned several publications into PDF and it is a very time-consuming process. Unless you're good at multi-tasking, it's time you will never claw back.

The Library of Birmingham (you know, that horrible retro-modern building that looks like a concentration camp from the future) recently binned tens of old electronics books, because, in their eyes, they're obsolete. They could have at least scanned them and offered as a digital download, but... no!

[ben]

For me, there are some publications I continually refer to on paper, that includes electronics and TV magazines, service manuals etc. I get pleasure reading them even when I am not trying to solve some problem or fix something. Then there are more general audio and electronics books and reference books which I very rarely dip into. It is these I would hesitate to take on, as house room is at a premium and if the information is fairly general or available online it is much simpler and practical to find /download it.

It is worrying that we might be losing hard-to-find things and I hate to see books being dumped. But one cannot save everything I suppose. As has been said, it would be nice to scan and copy the data but who is realistically going to take the task on? As the Chinese say, everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die!

[MrBungle]

Regarding scanning yourself, a lot of texts someone has already done, particularly ones of special interest that are either expensive or difficult to get hold of in some countries. You just need to know where to look.

I have to admit that I originally managed to collect all the ARRL publications on homebrew via PDF to start with from not so legitimate sources. These were all stamped up as from the British Library ironically perhaps. Seeing as I got so much value out of these, I meticulously collected the real books which cost a small fortune as it was the right thing to do. It was worth it.

American Radio History is glorious. I have an offline archive of PW just in case they disappear

[peterpixel]

I much prefer to read technical publications on paper so I tend to print off things like circuit diagrams,descriptions etc.Some years ago I lost my 6 volume set of Radio and Television Servicing and even though I moved into education and broadcast etc I missed them.Recently I came across an add for a gentlemans collection so I am now the proud owner of a 28 volume set of same,some of you no doubt will have seen the add.I know there will be a lot of duplication in these but as I have used them a half dozen times already they will keep me busy for some time to come.I am fortunate to have very long window cill in my workshop so storage is no problem.Peter.

[emeritus]

Crown copyright is no longer perpetual. That was removed by the 1988 Copyright etc. Act., but I don't recall offhand what the new arrangements are.

I have seen assertions of Crown Copyright in photographs and reproductions of posters or newspaper extracts works by organisations such as the National Railway Museum which are clearly not correct as the works were not created by the crown. Mere ownership of something by anyone does not create copyright, any copyright rights would have been those that were appropriate when the work was created: subsequent possession of a copy by the crown does not change that.

Copyright is nor so much of a probem in the US, where their law was that you only got copyright if you filed a copy of the work with the Library of Congress, meaning that many UK-originating works are free of copyright in the USA. A couple of decades ago they changed their law to come more into line with the rest of the world ( where registration is not a condition of the creation of copyright). When I was last involved with it professionally, the situation was that, in the USA, you didn't have to file a copy of a work to get copyright, but you did have to file a copy of the work with the Library of Congress before you could take any legal action to enforce it.

[ThePillenwerfer]

According to Sam Hallas in connexion with GPO N Diagrams, Crown Copyright documents are free for non-commercial use. In other words he can make them available on his web-site for free but couldn't if he charged.

I now much prefer reading books cover to cover in electronic form but find it pretty hopeless for reference works.

Second hand books do indeed seem to have lost their value. A lot of local charity shops have signs up saying they don't want them, along with VHS videos. Looking on Amazon, books seem to be either 1p or a fortune; there doesn't seem to be much available at a sensible middle-ground.

[ben]

Originally Posted by ThePillenwerfer

Second hand books do indeed seem to have lost their value. A lot of local charity shops have signs up saying they don't want them, along with VHS videos. Looking on Amazon, books seem to be either 1p or a fortune; there doesn't seem to be much available at a sensible middle-ground.

What depresses me is that many charity places prefer to stuff their shelves with as-new condition, mass-produced bestseller chuff, whilst binning slightly tattier but far more educational or scarce material, into this latter category much of the stuff that interests us surely falls.

[electronicskip]

Ive worked for charities for quite a few years now, and what tends to happen with text books is that if they have an ISBN number, it gets scanned and an online book source like kitebooks gives you the resale values, based on rareity and condition and any other ones that are on sale online.
Then you can sell the valuable ones online through them, or another online seller.
The more obscure the title and subject the more money it tends to be.
They hardly ever get recycled I can tell you that from experience.
Also the older publications without the ISBN are researched or even passed onto Auction houses for resale.

[FIXITNOW]

i still pick up books ,boot sales are great for this, mostly old electronic type .but never want to pay more that a couple of pound
most can be found as pdf but I still prefer the feel of a real book

[CambridgeWorks]

Certainly a lot of interest in this thread! As I said, my interests are somewhat specific WW2 related and also to a far lesser extent, trains, though I rarely buy any train books unless absolute bargains. If you look at my attached pictures you will see the glass fronted bookcase on the landing and then the 2 stacked inside my workshop.The Malta Early Warning System during WW2 has only had a brief look and I intend to read in full at some time. It was bought in In Malta following a private tour of the underground station located on the same site as the Dingli civil aviation radar station. I get a lot of pleasure from owning most of the WW2 technical books and re-reading some occasionally.
"Most Secret War" by R V Jones is my all timefavourite. I must have read it in full 5 or 6 times in the past 25 years.
This reminds me to start getting a few together to take on holiday to read.
Rob

[avocollector]

I love old books and have had to restrain myself from going after a complete set of Wireless World, having already acquired a fairly complete run of Practical Electronics and the Australian mag Electronics Australia - my wife is an electrical engineer so we have a fair few books on her subjects. I think there will be a lot of people doing this for a long while yet but it is sad to hear of the binned periodicals form libraries etc.

[CambridgeWorks]

The last ten years I have very slowly started sorting through some of my PW and SWM in the attic from decades ago. A quick look through each one and selecting the occasional article that interests me. This is scanned and saved as pdf. The magazines were then sold at junk sales etc. Whether they would sell now is doubtful, but freecycle should save them.
Together with lots of other downloads from specific sites I have 2.1G of files. These are stored on about 3 or 4 hard drives, spread across my computers.
See screen photos of start and finish pdf file index.
This project still has about 20 years of volumes to look through and scan, providing I live that long and don't lose interest!
By storing myself on hdd they should be available to me as long as I want.
Rob

[MrBungle]

That's exactly what I've been doing with PW as well. I do about 3-4 articles a week when I'm bored.

It's nice to be able to extract a series of articles and put them in one PDF.

[beamcurrent]

I am a great lover of real books;- bound volumes of WW, the Radiation lab series, BBC yearbooks, RCA technical review, Wireless for the warrior, Briggs BBC History, countless single volumes, all Radio, TV and Broadcasting related.

I hate reading PDFs especially if the resolution is low (American History) flicking back to an earlier page is a pain.

Perhaps there is scope for a Book sales wants section?? Or a book exchange table at radio shows?

Brian

[Cobaltblue]

Hundreds of my Radio books have just gone into storage.

When they come back there is going to need to be a bit of a thinning out I have multiple copies of so many of them.

I agree with all those who like the feel of a real book.

Having scanned in sales brochures and service data technically I no longer need the original but I still like to have it!

I like the ability to go to the bookshelf pull of a book at random open it flick through and just start reading at some random point

That can be done with an electronic copy but its just not the same.

Cheers

Mike T

[kellys_eye]

My storage HDD has over 200Gb of books/magazines but I can still spend an evening reading something like the RSGB Handbook in 'real' form!

[boxdoctor]

When servicing a piece of old gear on the bench, I find it so much easier to glance at a diagram in a book propped up on the bench near the job than having to crane my neck to look at the screen of a laptop or VDU.
If I only have the information in digital form, I find it most convenient to print it , and work from the print.
Resource-wasteful, though.
Also, I have quite a few old electronics - related textbooks that were given to me by old long-gone friends.
I could never scan these, - and then throw them away! Tony.

[Boom]

I have books all over the house. There is something deeply satisfying about thumbing my way through paper pages which a computer just can't compare with nor can a paper book crash and lose all of its information. A book doesn't need plugging in neither is there any wait before you can use it.

You can't get authors to autograph a computer version of a publication either.