Quote:
Originally Posted by audeojude
I'm not sure if the pack rat tendency will over my lifetime be a net negative or net positive thing.
However my 10 and 13 year old daughters are starting to have wide ranging interests and hobbies and we are finding many of the reference's and interest books in those fields coming into play. So I am hoping that my multi generational hopes for my collection are coming true. All the massive effort to collect them would be such a waste if after I'm gone my family just donated it to the library to sell at a library sale or turf into a dumpster. I would turn in my grave  lol
I'm hoping by the time I pass that one of both the children will feel possessive over the collection. I could see my wife being overwhelmed and just wanting to get rid of most of it.
actually even the digital collection though it takes up no space is going to require someone technologically oriented enough to keep it backed up and accessible through the years moving it from computer to computer. I am virtualizing most of my hosted services such as plex, calibre, audiobookshelf, game servers, etc.. So that the upgrade path hardware wise is easier, BUT, the level of technical ability needed to deal with virtual infrastructure is fairly high. As well as managing fairly massive NAS devices holding data from movies, music, audiobooks, digital books, photos, home movies, and a life time of scanned documentions such as medical records, local state and federal taxes, manuals for products we own and use, books i have been writing, art I have created as well as my family's art that we have scanned and saved.
Passing stuff like this down is either a rich mans game to pay people to manage it or a passing down generation to generation the technical skills to manage it.
Its actually a very interesting topic all in its own. Even as a IT professional of 30+ years I have data sitting that I can no longer access without absolutely massive effort to pull it out of one format and move it to something currently accessible with modern software. Everything from stuff stored on old tapes that are probably no good anymore as they do degrade and in data formats of software I don't even remember the name of that ran on windows 3.11 or windows 95 or mid 90's versions of software in linux. |
Yes, I read your previous comment. About physical bookcases too. I also used to have a bookshelf, and I worked hard to classify them neatly and carefully when reading. But for many reasons such as moving house while going to college, changing jobs and rebuilding my house, I had to give some of it away or donate it to the library. Currently, I hardly keep any paper books, except specialized documents for work. What a pity.
A bookcase is really like a fortune, e-books are fine, but looking at a paper bookcase, the feeling is very different.
I still remember that feeling, when I was young, when I saw my neighbor's bookshelf. The feeling of a child at that time was like being lost in a treasure.
And when I also have my own bookshelf. I feel so "rich", spiritually.
And now, I still keep the habit of collecting e-books. And luckily, the children around me also like to read, even though they increasingly wear thick glasses. Also quite worrying.