I am interested in brainstorming book collecting. Do you buy physical (printed) books? What kind of books? For how long and where do you keep them? How do you decide? In comparison, how does ebook "collecting" feel like? Do you call it collecting? Do you feel the future(s) of book collecting as we knew it before this decade might be at stake? How?

I do buy physical books (mostly comics, books on Graphic Design, art books and non-fiction), but more and more, I'm looking for ebook versions as well as/instead of. This is primarily for two reasons: 1. Space, and 2. I love the idea of having my library with me at all times. I love print, though, and especially the things you can do with it like die-cut, varnishes etc., so I'll never stop buying them, I'll just be a bit pickier in future.

I keep my books as long as I can, but I do have to cull them from time to time. There are certain books I'll never be able to get rid of, and those I keep in my study/office (for sentimental reasons, value etc). Others like novels, I tend to only read from libraries and never buy.

Apologies for the double post above :(

Anyway, ebook 'collecting' to me isn't quite the same as print book collecting due to the non-physical nature of the beast. Instead it feels more like buying albums in iTunes than browsing a bookshop. It's more utilitarian and less like a nice way to pass the time. In that way, it isn't 'collecting' (in the sense of a pastime or hobby), but more like 'amassing' or 'consuming'.

Obviously, collecting books is bound to change. But I'm not overly pessimistic about the future of it or printed books. There will always be people like me who will want a deluxe print edition of a book. I have more to say, but I'll leave it until others have weighed in :)

(It didn't appear to me as a double post. Maybe they do delete duplicates?)

It would appear so. Which makes my apology look at bit… odd.

My case is similar to Brad, I think. More and more I'm buying digital books, mainly for problems of space. I just moved and, gosh, moving so many physical books in the new bookshelves is exhausting. It requires too much time and effort. If I follow my usual pace of purchasing books in print, in one year I wouldn't have space in my home. Literally. Anyway, I keep buying physical books in some cases (mostly comics or art books). When it comes academic books, essays, novels, I tend to go digital.

I think in a few years digital book will change the way we 'collect'... it's already happening. As Brad said, many people will want to carry their entire library with themselves.

Pepo, I can really relate your tale of moving. We moved house a little under two years ago, and I did a massive cull of all my books, comics, records etc. Even with that cull, I still ended up moving over fifty large boxes of books and comics, which was both exhausting and expensive. Now imagine that all of that fit onto a device you can put into a bag and carry with you, and that was fully backed up onto the cloud. That's a massive plus for ebooks in my view.

Yes, same here. We have literally ran out of space. I also feel my perception of the meaning (also expressed as attachment) to a book collection is changing with time. Not sure if this is at all related to digital options or if it's just life... lack of space, change in priorities, etc.

yep, pretty much like you, Brad. Now imagine that this is a move upstairs, to an apartment on the next floor, and since you just have to climb a staircase, you do it yourself... box by box, for weeks. So was mine. But now it's over. Ha!

My experiences are similar to Ernesto's. I used to 'need' to have hard copies of books around me, for inspiration, reassurance and company, especially when I used to move home a lot. But as I've got older and my books (and myself!) have a more or less stable home, then I find myself 'needing' them less. I think I've become more interested in the concept of simplicity, and collecting 'ideas' and 'quotes' than the books themselves although I still have a very old copy of the Jungle Book that belonged to my grandfather that I'd love to get repaired. I rarely buy new books now (only 2nd hand ones), and have never bought an e-book, but I usually still take a book of poems with me when I travel with work, for inspiration and company.

(Thank you everyone for replies. It's good to see how quickly you guys have been allowed in Branch. Hopefully the others will be too if they are interested. I realised the default setting for notifications is to email you all the time. You can change this in the Seettings under your profile picture on the top right-hand corner of your screen.)

I still like to have a hard copy of a book. I don't like reading longer texts on computer screens and haven't yet moved to a digital reader. Purchase of a tablet, probably the ipad, is not far away and I feel my habits will change especially for buying comics. I've lived in my current home for 4 years but previously moved 11 times in 12 years. This would result in a minor cull of books (& LPs & CDs) each time, although the collections would increase again between each move. I buy comics (inc theory) & art books mainly, I used to buy more fiction but now prefer to use the library. I like to have bookshelves in my living room so that everything is accesible and I like the look of a room lined with books.

" I like the look of a room lined with books"

me too! I just realized.

I love my books. That's not to say many have not been given away or traded. The meanings of some of the works have changed over time, and works that I swore I would never sell or trade one year wind up in the heap the next year. I know I lost many books when I moved out of my parent's house. I lost many more when I moved across the country for my Ph.D. When I ran into some financial troubles, I actually sold off parts of my collection. Now that things are better, I've bought some of those books back. I guess I'd call my collection focused. I tend to seek out comics and cartoons, sometimes going to great lengths to find a certain text. I still enjoy combing old bookstores and thrift shops, but tend to find most of my stuff on eBay.

As for space-- that's an issue. I have a book room in my house with floor to ceiling bookshelves. All of the shelves are full, so I need to buy more. I moved out all of my professional books and teaching books to my office (which also needs more shelves). I have a bunch of paperback novels that might need to be traded. It's hard to decide what to do with those books that are "nice to have," but that get in the way of what I really WANT to have.

And this will sound funny-- I work online. I teach online. I assign eBooks instead of pricey textbooks, and electronic open educational resources when possible. At the same time, I do not own a Kindle, and ask for physical desk copies of the textbooks I use. I'd blame my age (but I'm on the young fringes of GenX), or say that the screen hurts my eyes (but I can search ebay for hours). I just love the physical book, and especially those exquisite books of the past (or from designers like Chris Ware). My husband recently lost his Kindle. The screen started blanking out, and because he lacks any new physical books, he has taken to reading the Kindle books on his iPod. He is the digital reader in this family. We'll see where our daughter falls!

I love old printed books and buy them sometimes from bookstores but more often from sites like Alibris. As a pilot I am most interested in old flying books about flying technique but I also like books on other topics published in the appropriate period.

But i would not recommend buying old books as an investment. The prices for old books seem to be very low, which is good for me but not so good for anyone selling. And I don't think you can make a slow profit buying first editions and selling them later. You'd have to be incredibly lucky or incredibly patient.

I prefer ebooks when i need them for scientific purposes or when I simply want to read the text. But I love my library as a space and I will continue to buy printed books where their sensual qualities matter - as it is the case with many books on photography. I wonder whether digital and physical collections can be integrated. How could a personal transmedia library look like? Would a part of it consist auf printed books with an added digital version? Or could we even use Augmented Reality techniques in future reading cabinets?

I still buy printed books, but lately I've discovered I'm more willing to sell them or give them away if I don't find them compelling. I used to be obsessive about keeping them or even collecting them, but age has changed that. I guess I'm less of a fetishist.
We bought a Kindle last year and most books I've read lately are e-books.
Believe me, with a small baby, you really appreciate turning pages with just a click.
I still hate the fact that you need batteries to read a book, though.
The immediacy of printed books is still unrivaled, I think, as is their powerful sensuality.

The only books I wouldn't throw away now are comic books and the ones given to me by family or friends. I'm really attached to those. I always imagine risking my life for some of them in a hypothetical fire.
My husband is a latecomer to comic books but lately I've found out from his jokes ("we need to mark our graphic novels with an electronic alarm") that he's become attached to them too. He's ok with lending novels and non-fiction to friends, but wouldn't let his Grant Morrisons out of the house. Over his dead body, he says.

Why do comic books tend to project that special aura?

I read some comics online, but for me, there's nothing like having the book in my hands. To me it is not only a book, but a precious object.

'Why do comic books tend to project that special aura?'

The images, the drawings, I think. Maybe that's why, in the digital age, with the decline of CDs-DVDs-physical books sales, graphic novels sales have grown (at least in Spain). A graphic novel is still a good gift. Also a good 'object' to treasure.

I moved to an all-ebook consumption a while ago. Mostly it was out of necessity: living in NYC, space is at a premium, and you have to move frequently—lugging around all these books gets to be a pain. Additionally, I've been trying to move towards owning less things.

With that in mind, the first thing I did was go through my existing library, and get rid of (read: give away or donate) any paperbacks, cheap hardcovers, etc. anything that was dissemble. I figured that if i wanted to re-read something, I could find it electronically. I kept the finely bound, hardcover books I do collect. These are heirlooms, and they have intrinsic value as objects, in and of themselves. That left me with a much reduced library.

Now, I do all my reading as ebooks. If its not available as an ebook, I don't read it (there's always something else to read!). Recently, with the advent of the retina iPad, I've even stopped buying printed comics—reading them on a retina iPad is just wonderful.

If I come across a book that I truly enjoy, and want in my library, I'll hunt down the nicest, most beautiful edition I can find, and buy that for my library (usually at a hefty premium!). But this doesn't happen often. In fact, it mostly happens with comics—DC's Absolute editions, for example.

I enjoy a room decorated with books. But, as all we know, traditional books have its own advantages and disadvantages.

Mainly space is one of those disadvantages. Not everyone is lucky enough to live in a house with enough space to store as many books as you wish. Second, moves, as some commented, make tedious storaging.

On the other hand, we can enjoy the feel of a book. We can even enjoy the smell of a printed book which does not occur in the case of digital books. Another extra point for printed books... They do not need batteries.

...

.. My shelves are full of books so I started reading digital books not long ago. I’ve got free space at home because I’ve saved all my digital books on my external hard drive and the cloud ( to make them available anywhere, anytime). Whenever I travel I get my reader loaded with many books and, of course, I never forget the charger.

Nowadays It’s common to see shelves at home. Over time We will use bookshelves for decoration or solely for collectors and most people will have their online digital libraries within platforms such as "google play", "amazone" … or simply we will save our books inside computers...

PS: Apologies for the double post. I hope my English is good enough to have this conversation. I'm still studying

It looks like I might be the exception in this discussion. I'm pure digital; I don't buy any physical books. Unfortunately, I don't get the same gratification from adding a title to my iBooks "shelf", but I think it is entirely possible with innovative UI/UX. With screens invading every part of our lives, who's not to say I couldn't put my prized digital collection on display in my house. Unfortunately, nothing that I know of exists like this in the current market. But in the meanwhile I can expand my e-collection, and still stay true to my militant minimalism.

Since two years ago I change to e-books. The main reason is the opportunity to have a book (in any devise, any time), the chance to bring more than one (usually a read two o three books at the same time). I think that the change was motivated by cost, space

However, when I looking for new books to read, I prefer to visit a bookstore to check the new arrivals than to read a critics in Amazon or other webstore.

In the case of books of illustrations, I still buy the print format because anything is part of the reading experience. Those books and my old ones are in shelves in my house and now are part of the decoration of my home office, it made this place warm.

Like many above, I love books whose physical qualities enhance the experience of the story. I work in children’s publishing, so I know a lot of people who think about how things such as the size of the book and the texture of the paper contribute to the reader’s experience.

But I am equally interested in finding and collecting ebooks and online publications that a use the limitations of their medium as part of the storytelling. A good example of this is p 7-9 of Emily Caroll’s His Face All Red. She uses the scrolling function of the page to increase the reader’s sense of dread, and she makes the reader click more from 8 to 9 (placing only one image on each page) to suddenly slow the climactic moment, drawing out its dreadful revelation.

emcarroll.com Here is the comic I mention

I don't have a problem with the use of the word "collection" also for ebooks or any other digital media for that matter. Traditional collections are physical, but you can equally well have a collection of short films, comedy sketches, radio drama, comics or stories that are entirely in electronic format. In this case the collection is focused on content rather on the media, just like some people like to have ready access to all of their favorite stories while others prefer to keep physical copies of the magazines they first appeared in, rather than reading them. It's maybe a different sort of collection.

I agree with Andrew. Collection is a varied term, and I think someone can even be a "digital hoarder" (I'm guilty as charged... though my last corporate "Strengths Quest" test called this behavior "input!" I think the word collection is sometimes confused with collectable. Physical books may be more collectable (like comics, for instance), but it doesn't mean one can't amass an intriguing, and meaningful, digital collection. I do imagine that "rare" files could be something in the future with programming enabling "limited edition" texts (perhaps similar to limited edition items in online video games) that have some non-tangible collectable value.

Perhaps there will also be collectors of obscure "first digital edition" files for readers that by then no longer exist.

Yes, this is my belief as well...

It is a great experience collect printed books, I personally find it amazing, to me it is like you are kind of freezing the time, a certain period of time through history. It is also good to know that we can carry all our literature in just one device for those days when you have to travel lightweight, at the same time it allow us to save trees of being ripped off from the earth, which is really necessary at this point, on the other hand if we think ecologically, how much water pollution does one battery cause? Because electronic devices need batteries to work, don’t they?

eBook readers are not so power hungry. Perhaps soon we will have solar or movement powered devices.

Hopefully we can stay on topic... rather than a comparison between print and digital, the questions that started this branch are about the experience of book collecting. Not that the reading experience and the experience of collecting are not related, but I hope you know what I mean. The question was not if printed books are better than digital or something like that. Cheers.

So here the initial questions once again:

I am interested in brainstorming book collecting. Do you buy physical (printed) books? What kind of books? For how long and where do you keep them? How do you decide? In comparison, how does ebook "collecting" feel like? Do you call it collecting? Do you feel the future(s) of book collecting as we knew it before this decade might be at stake? How?

Good point! I already said that I buy old used books to collect (and read). For contemporary books I now have a policy of keeping good ones I might want to use again and give away good ones that don't interest me, mainly for space reasons. I like the physical feel of a good book though I sometimes search an online edition of a book I have because it is quicker.

Some people will always collect physical books just like some people collect vinyl LPs. I don't see eBook collecting so much yet, but wait till digital nostalgia kicks in. It will come eventually.

I'm doing my best to de-materialize. I will buy comics in book form because they have an aesthetic component that prose books tend not to have, even though I find reading comics easier on the iPad.

It's funny that before I got the iPad I had a dedicated e-reader with e-ink. I read like crazy with that thing and it was easy on the eyes. When I got the iPad my reading slowed down because I was always checking Twitter, email, facebook... So, tho I love the IPad, I recommend an e-reader as well.

Peter, I usually read books on my eReader but I have never tried an iPad. Do your eyes get tired reading on an iPad?

I keep all my books in divided shelves around the house. I started with ebooks for practicality. I did't collect printed books... I used to store them where I could because I had no other options.

The backlit screen on the iPad is not the best for reading text. But is excellent for reading comics.

Recently I had to move some books to my parent’s house, because there was no more space at home to keep them, I felt sad, but at the end my parents live like 20 minutes away so from time to time I will go to their house and take a look on my collection outside home, probably I’ll take a couple of minutes to pick a good one and read it on my way back home. I am thinking about some strategy to gain space at home so I can keep collecting books.

back to the question I have a collection of books. This collection don't grow in the past years but I have a rare book that I keep with care, it is a old print of "RobinsonCrusoe" in French. The story is that a few month after of the earthquake in Chile(I am from Chile)I traveled to Europe for my honeymoon and a friend ask me if I could buy RobinsonCrusoe in different lenguages for the library of the RobinsonCrusoe Island, because was destroyed in the tsunami of the earthquake. So in France I was looking for a version in French. So, in a tiny market in Versalles I found a very old printing of the book from 1792, with illustration, to very low cost. So I bought a cheaper and newer print to the library of the island and keep the old one.

Oh! That’s a good story, congrats about your wedding! I have a good one too; once I was walking on the street on my way to school when I suddenly saw a bunch of stuff inside several boxes, when I got close to that place, what caught my attention was an old big speaker so I decided to get closer and take a better look, when I got closer I realized it was just the “speakerbox” with no actual speaker mounted, instead of a speaker there were books, it was full of books. I opened the boxes around them and all of them were full of books, well after a man came out of the building and crossed a few words I decided to take that piece of history with me, this collection has books such as Homer’s Odyssey, Sartre’s Les Mouches (in french language)

Thanks Georzsk!.
Nice story too, it's happen that this kind of books you can find it when you are looking for something else....simple luck!!

I like book collection in shelves, it gives me a very nice feel of having it. This also gives oppurtunity to nearer-dearer to look at the books with nice reading vibes collected in every read of it. The books can be shared without any access restrictions.

Nowadays, with icloud and other online sharing/ storing means, electronic version can be accessed from anywhere, there is no hasstle to select particular books while travelling. It also addresses the space requirement issue. With innovations and more-and-more user friendly gadgets with interfaces the gap between electronic v/s real book feel is bridging very fast, which really raises a big question on future of book collection only time will tell the answer ...

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