Ask HN: What to do with old computer books?

The charity shop really won't want them if they have no resale use/value.

I'd be astonished if those books cannot be usefully recycled alongside (say) cardboard.

But you might first ask your local museum or university computing dept if they'd like some for historical record!

> I can't really see there's much demand for Java 1.3, or Dreamweaver 4

You'd be surprised. Go to "sell back your books" and install the app, scan in the bar code or QR, and find out. They might offer you a small amount of money.

They also take some non-technical books, btw. They send you a prepaid shipping label, too.

Most old books are effectively disposable decor - the industry prints them by the millions and many have a limited life akin to the Dreamweaver how-to's. The "last a lifetime" highly sought-after books are truly the exception here.

For archival purposes you can go see if it's in the Library of Congress or scanned into Internet Archive, and if not, that's a project you can opt to take on(but it's pretty high effort). Quickly checking for resale value as other comments suggest is also not hard, just expect that most of your stash will go straight to the bin, and getting more out of it means making it your job.

The Peach Press Dreamweaver 4 book is listed on Sell your books at £0.46. I’m surprised it’s worth that much, the postage and packing would be far more.

That’s a good tip.

I was pleasantly surprised to see “Wicked cool shell scripts” worth 4x “High Performance habits” at 48 cents