The Urge to Purge...Books

For my last blog post in January 2012, I organized my cd collection, old fashioned as that might be, to purge some of the old ones and make more room.  What else can you organize in your living room?  Books.  Lots of them.  Sometimes, big, dusty, encyclopedia-filled piles of them.  Some of you younger readers may not have ever used an encyclopedia but I relied on them growing up!

Some people will not part with books as they represent to them a special time in history, a personal interest and memories.  It makes sense to keep some that you love and may read again.  However, when I help my clients prepare to show their homes for sale and to move, books are one of the first things we consider.  Why?  They weigh a ton.  A small box of books can make you stagger and cost a bunch of money to move.  They become dated quite quickly.  Also, leaving room can show off your built-in bookcases or make your free-standing bookcases seem less cluttered.  After recently helping a client purge piles of books, I tackled my own living room and pulled out two big bagfuls of hard- and soft-cover books to recycle. 

I have praised this place in other blogs but I adore the Theis-Cornfeld Recycling Center.  http://www.bethlehem-pa.gov/recycle/services/theis_cornfeld.htm.  There you will find two massive containers in which you can drop your books for recycling.  No more moving them multiple times and dusting them off all the time!

My graduate school research book?  Gone.  A 1990 theory book on social work?  Tossed into the bin.  I did keep the love note that my then-fiance and now husband wrote on a Post-It while we were apart for several weeks at a time in different states.  He had snuck it into one of my school books for me to find during the dry reading I was going to do.  That's a memory worth storing AND takes up a lot less room.

Happy purging!