I may have hoarding issues with ebooks

[issybird]

Thank you.

This thread has inspired me to take a quick pass at my ebooks and I just deleted about 50 books, give or take. Ideally, I plan to keep it up; the goal is to get my various libraries down to books I really, really want to read and there's a likelihood I'll get around to them in my lifetime, plus books I've read that are very important to me. Obviously a WIP, but I have hopes.

It's also so much easier to clear out the dross with digital books than with the paper books that are still all over the house, despite my having stopped buying them/reading them eons ago. Maybe the digital clearout will spill over!

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Make a local backup or two. Dropbox isn't an archive. It's someone else's server designed for sharing. Those could be gone today.

That would take up only a few percent of a cheap USB HDD (stores better in a drawer than SSD or USB /SD card memeory).

Yes, I have it backed up to an external HD, Google drive and Onedrive as well. Dropbox is just the main one I go to if I'm off-site and need to access my library. I've toyed with the idea of creating my own server that's accessible from the internet, but I'm not sure I want the headache of security and maintenance. I do have a plex server for tv and movies, as I hate how shows drop in and out of streaming services, etc.

[kyrilson]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

LOL, welcome to the ebook hoarders club. I'm quickly closing in on 2600 ebooks!

2600, nice. If you know, you know. 😀

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

You mean twenty-two *thousand* TERABYTES!??

How is that even possible!?

Yes!
Those racks allow millions to stream movies every day.
(They do not all end up in the same data centers.)

[theducks]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

I think everyone that likes to read has that problem. No one will be able to read all they books they want in life. Just enjoy what you do read. 😊

And some of them have yet to be written.
Oh No! Another new book is series ZYX *[Buy]*

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by theducks

Yes!
Those racks allow millions to stream movies every day.
(They do not all end up in the same data centers.)

Seeing that small rack accommodate such storage capacity helps me a bit in figuring how video platforms like YT can run endless video content 24/7, though that's still beyond comprehension to myself.

[Quoth]

Don't delete books or indeed anything. Archive if you must. Some day it might even be the only copy.

But a VHS tape going into the Disney vault doesn’t pull it from viewers’ shelves at home. For many streaming productions, the only way they’ve ever been available to users is on that service: remove them, and their entire existence is preserved only by the pirate filesharing sites. A whole generation is again exposed to the same maddening short-termism that saw the BBC tape over its only copies of old Doctor Who episodes.

I was working there then. A decision by accountants to save about £85 per tape in 1970s money. A lot now, but compared to production costs and the culture loss it's peanuts. They even destroyed loads of film to save a small amount in storage costs. No BBC Dr Who or anything else was "lost". It was all deliberate destruction against advice from almost everyone.

The centralisation and simplification of consumer technology makes it easier than ever before for huge swathes of our shared culture to disappear in the blink of an eye. It’s unclear what, if anything, will reverse that trend

As an aside, accountants and bookkeepers should only do the accounts and books and advise. None should be running businesses unless they are unusual. See also hedge funds and vulture capitalists in general.

Lose the vision and the business perishes. Most books on Economics espouse the idea that the ONLY important thing is marketing, thus logically don't bother "owning the mill", outsource. It's the importance of marketing (it is very important) being made the only thing. So you get security, accounts, payroll, HR, IT, manufacturing, cleaning, and food outsourced. Only Marketing remains. Soon no-one understands the product or the market.
Banks outsourcing IT is bonkers. They are not about counters in big halls above the vaults. They are about transactions. So they become soul-less marketing companies doing speculation on loans created elsewhere using rubbish IT outsourcing.

See UK and Capita on IT outsourcing.

Edit:
A link to quotes https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...images-linkrot

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

Seeing that small rack accommodate such storage capacity helps me a bit in figuring how video platforms like YT can run endless video content 24/7, though that's still beyond comprehension to myself.

SMALL? THAT RACK CRATED WEIGHS 3400Lbs (and barely slides under a 8' doorway. I came up with a different way to store the Main Power cables (2 @ 60A 3phase) so the shock crate could lose 8"

There are 24 drives in each 2U slot
Oh, those are not even close to being current large capacity drive. The size was for performance, not bulk storage (those server could support 6x the drive capacity)

[Comfy.n]

i've probably mistaken the screen panel for actual storage

[Quoth]

Also copyright expires, so those that say you can't leave ebooks you bought in your will are lying.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by issybird

Thank you.

This thread has inspired me to take a quick pass at my ebooks and I just deleted about 50 books, give or take. Ideally, I plan to keep it up; the goal is to get my various libraries down to books I really, really want to read and there's a likelihood I'll get around to them in my lifetime, plus books I've read that are very important to me. Obviously a WIP, but I have hopes.

It's also so much easier to clear out the dross with digital books than with the paper books that are still all over the house, despite my having stopped buying them/reading them eons ago. Maybe the digital clearout will spill over!

You'll be back! You can't hide what you are!

[Sirtel]

Frankly, I fail to see the point in getting rid of ebooks. Paper books, obviously; they take up real, physical space you could use for other purposes. But the amount of space ebooks occupy is negligible; why bother?

I've accepted the fact that I never, ever read all or even most of my ebooks. So what? I still like to pick and choose among them for my next read. As all my books are meticulously tagged, categorized and organized in Calibre, it's not hard to find what I want, no matter the overall amount. Now if I had to rely on Amazon or Kobo for library management, perhaps I'd want to have as few books as possible, too. Fortunately I don't have to.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Frankly, I fail to see the point in getting rid of ebooks. Paper books, obviously; they take up real, physical space you could use for other purposes. But the amount of space ebooks occupy is negligible; why bother?

I've accepted the fact that I never, ever read all or even most of my ebooks. So what? I still like to pick and choose among them for my next read. As all my books are meticulously tagged, categorized and organized in Calibre, it's not hard to find what I want, no matter the overall amount. Now if I had to rely on Amazon or Kobo for library management, perhaps I'd want to have as few books as possible, too. Fortunately I don't have to.

I could, and do, say that eclutter is still clutter, but I realize that begs the issue. However, I think there's a truth there just the same.

For one thing, ebooks need curating and curating takes time. Even if you've got your systems and categories in place, the more books, the more time needs to be spent on categorizing. To maintain granularity so you don't have to scroll through an endless list of books when you're in the mood for "something", more categories need to be established and books reassigned as the library grows. I'm speaking from experience, here. In addition to categorizing books by type, I also categorize them by "appeal". But that's got top-heavy over time, even as I've broken down my top "appeal" category.

Given the reality that I can't read all the books I'd like to read in my lifetime, why not cut out those that won't make the cut? Even cuts made with a machete rather than a rapier result in a library of greater appeal. I must say that when I try to winnow out books on my Aura One (which I try to maximize at ≈250 or less, it pretty much can't be done. All the books strike me as fabulous. And fabulous is what I'd like my ebook libraries to be.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by issybird

In addition to categorizing books by type, I also categorize them by "appeal". But that's got top-heavy over time, even as I've broken down my top "appeal" category.

I do this too. And you're right that the "appeal" categories grow with time, and need to be broken down again and again. Nevertheless, I don't mind that. I still wouldn't want to delete anything, even those books I know I'm very unlikely to ever read. Let them sit in Calibre; they don't bother me.

Weeding out books I'm presumably never going to read takes its own time, and personally I don't see any need for that. I'd still be curating and categorizing any new books I buy; the ones already bought have all been already curated, although I may change something from time to time. Selecting books for deletion would just be an additional chore for me.

I think the main difference between us is that I enjoy tinkering and curating, while you do not; for this reason you consider maintaining a huge library a chore, but I see it as a hobby in its own right. Deleting books would not add anything positive for me (less curating, which I actually enjoy doing) as it does for you (less curating, which you dislike doing).

[Aleron Ives]

It is perhaps also unwise to simply delete the least-desirable books from your collection without sufficient self reflection, first. After all, if you bought so many books that you know you'll never read all of them, and if you can easily select the books you're least likely to read in your library, then you may wish to look for commonalities among those books, so you can avoid purchasing such books again in the future, which would necessitate a repeat of the purging process, and waste more money.

If you're locked in a cycle of impulse buying books and then deleting them, it suggests you need to do more than a little spring cleaning: you need to refine your purchasing habits.