21–30 of 81 posts
What is very surprising for me is the height of the books. If you look closer at the picture, seems that most of the books are the same height, so that's very strange for any book collection except if he was collecting the same book editors or... Am missing something ?
I'm not sure about other countries. There is a culture refuse to throw away books in Germany. People would put on the streets for free (I found two interesting books with this method).
Germany is a lot more conservative than Denmark, so I wouldn't be surprised if they where more reluctant to throw out books. On the other hand, other than myself, how many people really want to read random novels from the 1970s or a 140 year old book on economics, telling you that Trump is wrong about tariffs?
Maybe with the advent of LLMs, old books will get a resurgence. If a book is printed in the 20th century, at least I know it's written by humans.
My dad left me several thousand books. Mostly about airplanes and warfare.
I’m not familiar with the “modern car” unit of weight. “With an assumed average weight of 300 to 400 grams per book, the weight of around 15 modern cars is currently stored in Schröder’s detached house.” 350 grams x 70,000 books = 24,500 kg. About 54,000 lbs. Can a ‘typical’ house bear that weight??
I’m not familiar with the “modern car” unit of weight. “With an assumed average weight of 300 to 400 grams per book, the weight of around 15 modern cars is currently stored in Schröder’s detached house.” 350 grams x 70,000 books = 24,500 kg. About 54,000 lbs. Can a ‘typical’ house bear that weight??
Modern builds codes require living areas to support 30-40 pounds per square foot live load so while you wouldn't want to pack it all in a 1k sq ft second floor apartment, it's doable in a larger space.
If it's an old house that was overbuilt before building codes were optimized, chances are it can support it. It also matters a lot whether this is an upper story, or just a single floor detached house sitting on a concrete foundation.
I'm not sure about other countries. There is a culture refuse to throw away books in Germany. People would put on the streets for free (I found two interesting books with this method).
> People would put on the streets for free In the US people put "Little Free Libraries" in their yards. They're all over the place in the Seattle area.
What is very surprising for me is the height of the books. If you look closer at the picture, seems that most of the books are the same height, so that's very strange for any book collection except if he was collecting the same book editors or... Am missing something ?
That was the first thing I noticed - a lot of those book covers look shockingly uniform. Maybe there’s more standardization in localized German publishers?
Similarly, sorting and measuring all the books by height and weight may have been a part of the project of planning the shelves in the first place. It does look like an attempt at efficient packing, which I suppose you would need to keep that many books in that house and relates to the structural engineer's surprise that the the weight was well distributed as well. (Professional libraries have made mistakes in planning the weight of shelves because books are heavier than you think they are, especially when shelved. That was an interesting finding.)
All of that implied work is more shame that the likeliest outcome after the owner's passing is that the books will be separated from the shelves and the house. It almost feels like the whole thing should have been preserved as a museum. I suppose it helps that there will at least be photos and notes about it like this article.
My dad left me several thousand books. Mostly about airplanes and warfare.
If you have a library that you want to keep out of the landfill, your job is not storing them, but convincing another human being (who's younger than you) that the books are of value. If no one you know has ever borrowed or expressed interest in them, then the shelf you relegate them to is as good as the landfill.
I tried selling some on Amazon. That doesn't work at all.
What is very surprising for me is the height of the books. If you look closer at the picture, seems that most of the books are the same height, so that's very strange for any book collection except if he was collecting the same book editors or... Am missing something ?