I'm looking for a solution to a problem, and I don't think Library Thing is quite it (or maybe it is?), but I figure the folks in this conversation will have some suggestions on how to move forward on it.
My dad has over 10,000 books. He's a retired professor, and he just … loves books. He's older, and is trying to figure out what to do with his books. Most of them aren't in great shape, so most general-purpose libraries aren't interested. The topics span just about every topic you could think of — philosophy, watercolor technique, Civil War history, chess strategy, ethics, business, fiction — so it's not like there's a topic-specific library or school that would be interested in them.
He'd love to get them to people who will really find value in them, whether that's through a donation or through selling them, but he's not extremely tech-savvy, and he lives across the country from me, so my ability to help coordinate is fairly limited. I thought perhaps some sort of "catalog them, then send to Amazon to sell on the secondary market" approach might work, but that could also be a disaster.
Any ideas? Have any of you handled something similar?
The first step does sound like "catalog them", and LibraryThing is a great tool for that (especially now with the expanded free access they just announced here). The LibraryThing iOS/Android app includes a bar code scanner to help.
LibraryThing's forums are also where I'd start to ask the hard questions of what to do with the collection. Especially once it is cataloged you could get a ton of good opinions in the LT forums on which books might have value where. A lot of small and niche libraries already use LibraryThing for their operations and you might be surprised who you network with once the overall collection is cataloged.
I think your best bet is to catalog them (using LT if you like) and try to sell them as a single collection. If there are any that you identify as particular powerful, maybe sell them separately. What's going to kill you is the shipping for a single collection. Maybe offer a discount for a local sale and pick up.
My dad has over 10,000 books. He's a retired professor, and he just … loves books. He's older, and is trying to figure out what to do with his books. Most of them aren't in great shape, so most general-purpose libraries aren't interested. The topics span just about every topic you could think of — philosophy, watercolor technique, Civil War history, chess strategy, ethics, business, fiction — so it's not like there's a topic-specific library or school that would be interested in them.
He'd love to get them to people who will really find value in them, whether that's through a donation or through selling them, but he's not extremely tech-savvy, and he lives across the country from me, so my ability to help coordinate is fairly limited. I thought perhaps some sort of "catalog them, then send to Amazon to sell on the secondary market" approach might work, but that could also be a disaster.
Any ideas? Have any of you handled something similar?