I fucking hate silverfish. I hate pests. I have blocks of cedar and bay leaves on each shelf to deter pests such as silverfish, moths, etc. Does it work as well as mothballs? I dunno. 15 years in though, and no bugs, yet. ::knocksonwood:: That said, just the thought of bugs fills me with worry. All of my books are kept in a very dry basement. On the upside, mildew is not an issue. On the downside, it's a bit too dry, so I need to run a humidifier sometimes to prevent the spine glue from drying out. I wonder if there is a legal, easy, free way to get digital copies of all of my books. My comics especially.
Comics are the hardest part of digitizing a library imo. Usually you'll end up just torrenting some cbz/cbr because a nice soul was kind enough to take the time to scan it and upload it, whereas the manufacture of the comic (who can no longer make money on it, or doesn't realize they can profit twice from it) can't be bothered.
Yeah. About 70% of my collection is graphic novels. I've collected a lot in the span of 15 years. Seeing as how that's the majority of my collection, it's a bit of a hurdle to overcome. It really is a bit much to tackle. One of the interesting things though is that Valiant, my favorite universe, is slowly republishing a lot of their stuff from the '90s. They seem to see the value in their old properties and are embracing them. The second biggest chunk of my collection actually happens to be antique books. Digitizing them kind of defeats some of the purpose. That said though, as each month passes I'm more and more considering getting rid of that part of my collection. Taking care of them is a bunch of work and responsibility. It kind of takes some of the fun out of collecting them.
We had to leave our apartment for three days while the fumigated the entire building (30 units) for termites. Packed up all our food, moved the aquarium and plants to the clubhouse, the whole nine yards. The silverfish didn't give a fuck. It's interesting. I purge books like a mutherfucker. I recognize that nearly every book I own I've purchased used, and that publishers and authors have no secondary market participation, and that from an author's perspective, buying the book used is the same as torrenting it. Yet I pay for Kindle books because I like the convenience. I like being able to sync between two kindles and a phone, I like being able to read samples, I like being able to check them out from a library and read them on my device, I like knowing that my notes and bookmarks are preserved across the cloud. More than that, I hate that trade paperbacks are so crappy these days and that the best cover in the world is likely to curl, but that I can pimp the shit out of my Kindle and suddenly my wretched digital no-book-feel book not only feels better than a shitty paperback, it SMELLS awesome. My one regret is that they discontinued the DX. The form factor of the DX dusts the fuck out of the little kindles. And they'll probably stop selling those soon, too, because they sell hella more Fires. Sux.
I know you can highlight, leave notes in, etc, a Kindle book, but there's one thing I don't think you can do which just struck me: can't get an ePub signed, can you? I purge a lot of books but there are some I can't ever purge or replace with a Kindle edition and I was trying to think what those were, and why they couldn't be replaced/made digital. So far signed copies, and the ability to get copies signed, or inscribed with a personal note, stand out the most. I guess we could go back to autograph books.
This so much this so much. When I moved I purged an entire lifetime of books. My kindle though? I was able to keep with every book on it and read it while traveling. Fuck paperbacks. (But also fuck vendor lock in which kindle really doesn't have a problem with but sort of does).It's interesting. I purge books like a mutherfucker. I recognize that nearly every book I own I've purchased used, and that publishers and authors have no secondary market participation, and that from an author's perspective, buying the book used is the same as torrenting it. Yet I pay for Kindle books because I like the convenience. I like being able to sync between two kindles and a phone, I like being able to read samples, I like being able to check them out from a library and read them on my device, I like knowing that my notes and bookmarks are preserved across the cloud.
Neither have I, it's more of a feeling of dirtyness that I know I can't transport my kindle books from one ecosystem to another without decrypting the drm. It's been fine because Amazon's kindle has been the best thus far, and I have no problems with their ecosystem. But hey you never know what crazy device might come out tomorrow!