Storing Personal Library, Which Books To Keep Out?

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Salutations,

I am going to be putting most of my personal library into storage in the coming weeks, and would like to select several books which 'make the cut,' as it were, and are kept on my shelf.

Besides my Bible, what kinds of books do you think should make up the hand-picked selection? Bear in mind that, having a young family, I an pressed for time, and therefore cannot justify keeping out several volumes about the English Civil War, as much as I would like to.

Should I limit myself solely to theology? Should I pick a book from multiple genres, so as to have a variety?

My plan is to stick with these books for some time; I hope to know each one better than I know shelves full of them.

I know there is no right answer, but what would you do in this instance? I may keep out anywhere from 5-15 books.

Here is a picture of some that I am considering:
 

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I've been wrestling with the same issue, more or less. I'm going to be moving soon, and have begun to pack up my books. I've resolved to keep everything on the shelf that I think I may need between now and the time I unpack my library.

An example of a book in your picture that I will be packing up is my copy of Mathew Henry's commentary. I have access to it on my phone and computer, and I only use it as a reference, so I really don't need the hard copy at hand. However, if you're reading through it or something like that, that changes things.

I think I'll also be packing up Magnus Magnusson's history of Scotland as well :lol:. I haven't read it form cover to cover--I've only referenced it a few times. I've been a bit disappointed with it, to be honest. But historians can't please everybody, and that's what you get when you go to a general history of a nation looking for specific details about particular eras.
 
Thanks for the reply.

It's a hard decision, because I am always thinking, "I'll read this some point." But I never do.

I might end up really cutting it down to only a mere handful of books. If I let my hobbies dictate my reading, I'd have 1000 books on the go; but, my priorities right now should be to spend the little amount of time I have on growing in godliness.

Goodbye Lord Of The Rings! Fare thee well, histories of England and Scotland! Godspeed to you biography of John Newton!
 
If you have had the books for some time, a simple sorting method would be to separate out those with larger amounts of dust upon them. That dusty group represents the candidates for storage.

[nb: Of course if you are a tidy sort where dust is denied residence, then rely upon some other criteria, such as a book not having been picked up and consulted in the past X or Y months.]

Now sort that dusty group into appropriate categories. Use the categories for prioritizing your personal interests. Those at the top of your interests might then be re-sorted by worthiness, that is, is it a well-known and respected work? If so, set it aside with the less dusty volumes.

At this point you have remaining some regularly used and some dusty, but commendable volumes. Compare both groups for redundancies of content, selecting the one's that are necessary to your needs. The remainder are sufficient, yet not necessary, and if you have exceeded whatever space limitation goals you have in mind, these remainders will also be placed in the dusty piles mentioned above.

Store the volumes not making the cut per the categories you have established such that when the need arises to seek one out of storage it will be easily located versus "hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse." ;)
 
I recently gave away more than 300 books. Some of them were duplicates of works I have in Logos, others were books I acquired at Moody or Southern - books used as class texts that I knew I'd never read again, but they sure looked good in my bookshelves.

I don't think you should keep a book on the shelf just because it fits within a category that you like. If space is really an issue...

Keep out what you realistically plan to read or reference.

It would be handy if you have a good inventory of your books, and box them up by category, or in some way that enables you to have an idea of where each book is. That way, if you need to access any of your stored books, that'll make it a lot easier to locate them.
 
I've been thinking of doing something like what Patrick and Ben have described, as I'll probably be putting a few hundred in storage soon. I've got a pretty good record of the inventory, but not a very good handle on what is where, exactly, unless it is on a shelf that I look at fairly often.

I probably need to get rid of a good many even if I end up having room for most of them in a subsequent move. I'm not real interested in moving multiple boxes of books that I don't really want or that someone else can make better use of. I have given away a good many books in recent years to churches that are in the process of "reforming" and which have used them to restock their libraries. The leadership has seemed happy to have them, or at least some of them.

I think the distinction that AMR makes between sufficient and necessary is key. If I've been collecting eschatology books in preparation for some massive study, what three or five books do I need to read now versus the other few dozen that should come later? If you have that kind of habit, sometimes you can become overwhelmed and not even know where to begin. Which ST texts or Study Bibles (or "regular" Bibles) or commentaries do you need now versus those you only use for occasional reference, if ever?

Then there are are some out of print volumes, like Patrick's beloved NIV Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible, that I don't consult nearly enough but which I'll never get rid of because of the difficulty of acquiring another copy in good shape at a reasonable price.

If you are like I am, you may find that some of them are not even sufficient for any use that you can realistically expect to put them to within the next decade and they aren't some kind of classic or standard work that you can't bring yourself to part with.

As for haven't touched a book in x or y months, how about haven't touched it in years except maybe to ensure it isn't covered in dust? I've gotten rid of some of those in recent years and have found that doing so hasn't kept me up at night. There are a few that I may end up reacquiring, such as Iain Murray's 2 volume biography of Lloyd-Jones, but I don't think there will be that many, especially since many of them are freely available as ebooks or else are periodically available at very low prices for Kindle. (The problem with Kindle is that you can blow money on books with no way to sell them or give them away.)

Part of my problem is picking up "bargains" that I have no plan to read any time soon, if ever. That 50 cent book at the library fundraising sale which is worth $5-$40 on the used market can end up being "too expensive" if it is just going to gather dust and cause you grief in trying to figure out what to do with it after a year or five. Sure, you can sell some of them, but is it worth the time and effort expended on some of them unless you're going to start a business?

I'll probably at least have something like an eschatology box, an ecclesiology box, an American History box, a WW2 box, and so on.
 
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For what its worth, based upon decades of organization and tweaking, below is a snapshot of how I organize my personal files, books, etc., related to my theology interests. The list is also the labels I use for sub-folders on my computer in a top-level directory entitled, Theologos:
AMR Personals (my online profiles, testimony, statement of faith, etc.)
Anthropology (original sin, total inability, etc.)
Apologetics (cults, evolution, atheism, YEC defenses, etc.)
Argumentation (rules of conflict engagement online, worthy retorts, etc.)
Augustine Catholicism (Romanism topics)
Bible Study (sub folders include hermeneutics, languages, translations)
Calvin (what he said, who he was, controversies)
Calvinism (5 points, histories, defenses, TULIP explained, humor)
Cessationism
Christian History (Luther, Puritans, surveys, ECF)
Christology (limited atonement, deity, an/en hypostasis, obediences, etc.)
Confessionalism (the historic confessions, expositions, controversies)
Counseling (Biblical counseling, advice for the forlorn)
Covenantalism (dispensationalism rejections, covenant theologies)
Ecclesiology (RPW, Sabbath, ordination exams, psalmody, polity)
Election (defenses, doctrines, controversies)
Eschatology
Federal Vision - Theonomy - NPP
Heresy and Authority
Holy Spirit
Homiletics
Justification
Lapsarianism (free offer, supra/infra, Marrow, common grace, etc.)
Law and Magistrate (law-gospel, theonomy, establishmentarianism, etc.)
Open Theism (a personal hobby horse of mine)
Philosophy and Logic (ectypal/archtypal, presuppositionalism, worldview)
Puritan Hard Drive (PHD software version: downloads as needed)
Sacramentology (baptism, Lord's Supper)
Seminaries (useful online course materials, students of mine)
Sermons-Devotionals (my own and others')
Soteriology (assurance, regeneration, etc.)
Sanctification (walk of faith)
Spurgeon Sermons (all 3,579 of them!)
Statements of Faith (I am a collector of good SoFs)
Theology (Systematics and doctrinal works)
Theology Proper (doctrine of God)
Trinitarianism
Commentaries (one sub folder for each of 66 books)

Total electronic content: 9,492 Files, 321 Folders
If you would like to see how a particular folder above is further organized, start a conversation with me for the details.
My Theologos folder (pdf, docx, xls, txt, images, etc.) is available for purchase, $5,000, or about $0.53 a file.
How I find what I am looking for electronically: X1, DtSearch, Everything
 
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