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As the time for my move to Austin draws closer, I am starting to sort through all of my books. Well, at least all of the books I have in Chicago–I still have hundreds back at my parent’s place, mostly related to my undergrad degree.

I’ll be in a teeny-tiny efficiency outside of UT, where I’ll have access to the campus library. Sure, it’s great to have books at your fingertips for 3 a.m. use, but while boxing up my books, I’ve begun to wonder if I need so many.

I’ve started a system that I hope will keep the book clutter to a minimum, while not requiring me to sell all of them!

• If I haven’t read/used it in a year and it is not a reference book (dictionary, anthology), I sell it/donate it and write it up in Library Thing as one I’ve owned.
• If I’ve marked it up significantly and it is a text related to my philosophical interests, regardless of whether I’ve looked at it recently, it stays.
• Fiction books I think I would read again (i.e. Hitchhiker’s Guide, Golden Compass, anything by Salman Rushdie, Jeanette Winterson or Umberto Eco), I keep.

Perhaps someday I’ll have a big corner office in my university where I can load as many books as I want into nooks and crannies, and they’ll stay there until my cold, dead emeritus body is taken off campus (I anticipate dying in my office, slouched over a book). Until then, moving books is not fun; feeling overwhelmed by books is not fun; and I’d like to save my book money for plane tickets back to my wife!

How about you? Do you have any rules for book purchases/maintenance?

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