Goodbye Books
One of the perks of being a university teacher is being able to order textbooks free of charge. This is because publishers want teachers to choose ‘their’ book to teach, thus insuring sales to students. I believe this is called ‘smart business’.
Now, during my couple of years at the University of Iceland, I ordered about 20 books, and chose four to teach – leaving quite a few unwanted and unused books. So, what to do with said books?
Unused ‘sample’ textbooks from two years of teaching. Two of these were sent to me unasked for!
Sometime during the day I remembered that the National and University Library of Iceland is a short hop and a skip away from my office. After giving them a call, I found the lady in charge of receiving book donations (Bryndís Ísaksdóttir, bryndisi hjá landsbokasafn punktur is), and sure enough she said they’d be thrilled to have them. Hammering the iron while it was hot, I therefore dropped the books off this afternoon, and was quietly amused at how happy she was to receive new books. Apparently it’s much more common for people to give old books away. 🙂
And so, after today, I’ve almost cleared out my office. I punted on throwing out my Stanford notes, and ferried them home instead. Some of them will probably bite the dust in the coming weeks, but I’m not mentally there yet. Also – why is it so hard to throw out my own old textbooks that I haven’t touched in a decade and probably never will, because, seriously, Wikipedia has it covered!