I am committed to retiring as of May 2027. I’ve yet to talk to any administrators about it, but this has been such a terrible year — knees going kerblooiee over the summer, a bad fall last month — that I don’t think my body can keep up with all the pressure. I can make it one more year, I’m pretty sure, and then I get to live a worry-free life, lounging about the pool, sipping pina coladas, etc., that’s how it works, right?
But then I looked around my office…I have over 26 years of accumulated books, just books.
That’s less than half — there’s another set of shelves on the other side of the room. I’ve been shedding a few, mainly giving them out to students, but now they all have to go. I think this is the summer I have to clear everything out somehow. I’ll sell some, give away some, some are going to a landfill (I’ve got toxic creationist books that it would be irresponsible to release into the wild.) A while back, I gave away a lot of old textbooks to a charity that would ship them off to African schools, maybe I can look them up and give them a good home.
Then there’s the lab. I hope Mary doesn’t mind housing a lot of spiders.
Anyway, I think shutting down and cleaning up will be my major summertime project. That, and occasionally skipping off to observe more spiders.
And your eyeball thingy. Good plan.
I wish there were a way you could scan your book titles and auction off the non-toxic books as a fundraiser for Freethought Blogs. But I know it’s a pain to get it organized, and to do shipping, even if eBay handled the auctions themselves. I wonder if anyone even knows what app would be available for scanning book spines on the shelf to make a library database?
Are you gonna have a showing of Eight Legged Freaks at your farewell party?
Oh I feel for you PZ – I had the same task before a house move last year. Established some criteria, then gave the unwanted to a local charity which conducts a fundraising book sale every year. Bonus is now my shelves are less crowded and I can find things…
I always suggest donating them to your local library if they’re appropriate. Text books and other academic material that requires specialized knowledge should be handled in other ways, otherwise, the books will probably end up in the landfill, just through another path. My library, for example, will accept technical books on computers, electronics, etc., but then, it’s located in the middle of Silicon Valley. In any case, they offer them up during a couple book sales every year, earning money for the library.
Another option for all those books that don’t have a specific home to go to is to send them to Better World Books.
You think you have a bunch of books (trying to shoehorn a Crocodile Dundee reference in somehow).
How many ebooks do people have?
Your retirement will be our gain as you have more time to blog…one hopes…
Maybe write some books of your own.
I feel for you. I moved to a different state and tried taking a new job at 62. Lasted 7.5 months before I called it quits. My body wasn’t the issue – it just wasn’t fun any more. That, and our financial advisor had been telling us for a couple of years that we had choices. I’m 2 weeks into retirement and trying to figure out what to do with my time. Don’t fight it – you’ll love it once you get there!
Ten months into my formal retirement I’m still not sure how it works. When my life was structured around a 9 to 5, 5 days a week, work attendance necessity I used to sleep for the same six hours almost every night and stick to the same weekly schedule of cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc. Now I have periods of sleeping three hours in the middle of the night followed by three hours in the afternoon interspersed with periods of six hours at any time, of eating two meals a day or of snacking all day, of binge-watching a TV series for 20 hours every other day while a week later reading a book for 16 unbroken hours day after day, or doing some writing. The long days of summer and short days of winter (I’m further north than most Canadians, for context) don’t have much impact on it.
Somehow everything still gets done but I couldn’t tell you when or in what order, let alone what will be happening this time next week. I’ve tried enforcing some regularity on the chaos but I really hate having that 6.45am alarm intruding on my existence once again. My finances have settled down, I’m thoroughly relaxed and overall I’m very happy, but there’s still that tiny nagging feeling that I’m doing something wrong.
Rich Woods @9
I look forward to having your problems ASAP!
June, 2027 for me, PZ. I’ll raise a glass to you (and I).
You say that like it’s a bad thing. But then, I have a tentacle in each of the three Ls — the three fields most likely to result in obsessive bibliophilia: Literature, Law, and Language. But then, in my last apartment search I rejected one building because its floor-loading capacity was clearly insufficient, so it does have some consequences…
Maybe it is the difference in our fields PZ, mine is molecular microbiology, but 95% of the scientific books I have in my office are actually not really worth keeping or giving away. They are outdated, science has moved on and only the most basic textbooks might still be of use (and ever they would not be missed too much). Is this different in your field?
It bleeds my heart as a bibliophile, but having more up-to-date texts, graphics and information from the internet beats the old text books in their actuality and usability hands down. So, when it is time to leave my job and office one day, recycling it will be.
I know that anything environmentally friendly is anathema to a lot of US government, but don’t you have somewhere that you could recycle the creationist rubbish rather than sending it to landfill?
When I retired I realized that the thousands of books I had accumulated over my academic career would not fit into our house, already over-loaded with our ‘recreational’ reading, so I contacted Zubal books in Cleveland. They sent two vans to my office, took away all of my professional books. journals, etc with the minor exception of a handful of things I wanted to keep more for nostalgic reasons, and a few weeks later emailed me a fairly generous offer for the whole lot.
I don’t know if Zubal’s business extends as far as Morris, MN, but it’s possible that there are dealers closer who could do the same for you — the original Powell’s in Chicago, for example, still buys academic books….
“And you know that thing you’re sucking on? It ain’t a pina colada!” Memorable line from Inside Man with Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, 2006.
ReÉ Creationist books to the landfill…
I’ve recycled most of my old text books, would be surprised if there isn’t such a service in or near Morris.
That way, those Xtian pages can be reincarnated… maybe into a book about science. Sounds like a more fitting end, in the end.
If I recall correctly you will be 69 in a few weeks. Retiring at 70 is still no mean feat.
In regard to those toxic creationist books they are good reference material for other anti-creationists (as I live on the wrong continent I do not know many beyond Aaron Ra and Skepchick).
And maybe the Southern Poverty Center will have use for them, as there is an overlap between creationists and the far-right loons they keep an eye on.
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Just to mess with Noah, Heath and Eli at God Awful Movies you can ship a container of books to them as the awful creationist ‘documentaries’ they have to review are usually based on these books. April 1st is near so they might take it in the spirit it is intended. 😀
Congrats on the upcoming retirement. I made the jump at the end of the last school year, and I know how it’s hard to throw it all out the way my wife wants. Mine are boxes of assignments, lesson plans, and worksheets I spent my first couple, poorly paid, years typing until midnight on my old Mac Classic in a drafty apartment. It would be like throwing out old photos without at least looking at them one more time.