Thoughts on Marie Kondo from Lileks.
I have too many books, and I’d never have time in this life (barring breakthroughs in life extension) to read or reread them all. I have a twenty-volume encyclopedia of the Illustrated Science And Invention, which may come in handy after the apocalypse, when all knowledge of technology has been lost, and we have to rebuild civilization, so that definitely stays. But I really need to organize all of my books, and papers. My office is a godawful mess.
I have lots of books. Many of them are history books, and there was a time when I was buying used and out-of-print books about the early years of the Space Age online.
Most of them describe the exploits and achievements of dead white men. I worry about what will become of them when I’m gone. I don’t know who to leave them to. I don’t want to donate them to a library, because I suspect that many librarians are SJWs who will happily send them to the recycler to make room for Maya Angelou’s poetry.
More and more, I can’t shake the feeling that I should be sealing them in plastic and burying them in lead-lined boxes.
Robert Zimmerman over at Behind the Black has been grappling with a similar dilemma about what to do with all of his research that includes lots of interviews and what not. Many museums don’t want to take stuff like that but it they have historical importance even if not marketable value in attracting crowds.
This is an opportunity for either crowdfunding a 501c3 or some billionaire stepping in to fund a repository.