Is there a way to get the total value of my collection?
I've been collecting resources (AKA as buying resources) for logos since the mid 1990's. I've looked at my order history on the Logos website but it only goes back to 2003. It does give me a total I've spent since then, but it's missing 7 or so years prior to that. Is there a way to find the value of those resources?
John
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Mine only goes back to early electronic delivery ... it's missing what's popularly known as the Libby Years. Aka mailed CD years.
But you go back even earlier.
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I only had a MacArthur CD when I started, so my order history could at least give me what's been added, but I would still have to largely figure the values out for myself with all the freebies. That's an insane amount of work. I just figure my total value as maybe double of what I spent and that's conservative.
The mind of man is the mill of God, not to grind chaff, but wheat. Thomas Manton | Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow. Richard Baxter
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My history on the website goes back to a purchase in 2001 (BDB on CD-ROM for $43.27), though I have a personal record (in MS Money where I used to track all my expenditures) when I bought a bunch of CD-ROM titles at a Logos in-person event in 1999. Then nothing until 2007, when I started spending megabucks and haven't stopped. In all I've spent over $193k. Yikes! The replacement cost would probably be less now, because I'm sure many of those titles and bundles that I bought individually are now part of Logos 9 Ultimate, which sells for $22k.
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I am sorry that you probably cannot find out the answer to your question.
How do we assign value to free books? Especially ones that we never would have "purchased" if they were not free. What if the book we bought in Logos was twice the price of a Kindle, or a repeat copy of hardcopy book that we already owned but wanted to be able to search in Logos? What are books worth? What is anything really worth?
My Verbum/Logos collection is the only thing I own of any value. Have I overspent? How do I know the answer to that question? At times I have purchased things because they were on sale and I wondered afterwards if I had sinned by purchasing them. Then just weeks later, I had a critical need for them and soon after the opportunity to pay off that debt.
God gives us assignments to complete. He supplies the tools that are needed for the assignments. We are sinning when we do not spend the tool money on the tools he intends the money for. Sometimes I am confident of my obedience and sometimes I am not. Often my confidence does not match the confidence that onlookers have in my choices, especially in the moment. Most people that watch me long term often change their mind as we go along. LOL. Some do not. Some are angry that I have what I have, according to the standards of their worldview.
I am deeply confused about the topics of value and abundance and all that type of stuff. When I was younger, I had adopted frugal and self-neglectful money habits that earned me a lot of praise. The prodigal son parable deeply confused me. Then ... stuff happened, and ... I guess somehow I became a prodigal myself. A prodigal daughter that is given assignments that require expensive tools to complete. Now I am more confused in general than I am confused by that story. The more I learn, the less I know.
My collection is new enough that I am sure there is somewhere I can find the total that I have spent, but is that the value of my collection?
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Allen Browne said:
Same here. I have had the feeling that I have about 6000 resources, but I have 8281 (almost $30k - and I feel terrible). But it is very useful for my purposes.
One problem I see is that I may have good and valuable books (containing useful information) and I don't even know about it unless someone happens to point it out in social media or so.
One thing that could improve the value of the library as a whole, is to have more user definable data fields (columns like mytag) in the library. That would help sifting resources for various purposes.
Gold package, and original language material and ancient text material, SIL and UBS books, discourse Hebrew OT and Greek NT. PC with Windows 11
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Rosie Perera said:
Then nothing until 2007, when I started spending megabucks and haven't stopped. In all I've spent over $193k.
Rosie, you always make me feel so stingy, having only spent a third of that. Or maybe so proud of my restraint, having only spent a third of that [:P]
My question is How do you organize such a humongous library?
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on average I've paid about 1.28/title. I have 5 digits of books (xx,xxx).
But their value is incalculable.L2 lvl4 (...) WORDsearch, all the way through L10,
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Thanks for confirming what i suspected. For any that are curious, My wife and i are having our wills and Trust prepared, and per Logos policy, to pass on my collection (which i felt was substantial until Rosie posted) it needs to be bequested in my will. As part of that process, the Lawyer asked for a ballpark value (I think to confirm that it was worth putting in a will, since i'm not bequeathing my computer games, etc). The Order History in the account section of my Logos account shows actual dollars spent in purchases since 2003 in excess of $14,000 which surprised me a bit, so i was just curious about how much i might have spent in the 7 years before that. I would guess between $1,000 and $2,000 but i was hoping to be able to find out. I honestly do not remember what CD's i bought back in those days, except i do remember getting some different packages and upgrades.
So, this is not about the value/use of the software and resources, so much as trying to have a reasonable idea of what my entire collection is worth objectively. Whatever the actual amount is, it's been worth it.
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Jack Caviness said:
Rosie, you always make me feel so stingy, having only spent a third of that. Or maybe so proud of my restraint, having only spent a third of that
Maybe I'm just too careless with my spending. Mind you, I could afford it, so maybe I'm just blessed with not having to worry about it too much. But still... I'm sure there are charitable causes I could have given some of that to.
Jack Caviness said:My question is How do you organize such a humongous library?
Tagging. I haven't kept up with the tagging as new books have come into my library, though. I have 28,354 resources (not a very good ratio for average book price [:(]), and 8913 of them don't have any tags at all. And of the ones that do have some tagging, 7130 of them are not fully tagged to my satisfaction.
I have a system whereby new books that arrive, before they've been tagged, have a 0 star rating by default. Once I've tagged them to my satisfaction, I assign them 2 stars just to let me know I've done it and they are not known to be terrible or good or great or excellent books, just unknown/average/meh. Later I might rate them, once I've become familiar with them. But I know that the reality is I'll probably never become familiar enough with even a fraction of the books in my library to rate them.
Bottom line, I probably have too many books for the use I'm making of them. And have spent way too much money for the use I'm making of Logos. But hey, if I amortize it over all the years I've been a Logos user (20) it's not that bad. Only $9650/year. Well, yeah, that's pretty bad. More than I've spent on almost any other budget category except my house.
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Rosie Perera said:
charitable causes
Buying books is not just burning money, but keeps the authors alive, thus it can be seen as charitable cause.
Also Logos gets some funds for the software development. And that helps all of us.
What I can infer from the church history, reading the Bible leads to revival. Thus the current trend to use electronic devices to study the Bible is beneficial.
Gold package, and original language material and ancient text material, SIL and UBS books, discourse Hebrew OT and Greek NT. PC with Windows 11
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Well... just reading through this thread.... it is easy for me to see everyone is richer than I am.... and I wish everyone well with that...
I did try to estimate my Logos everything.... and I came up with close to $10,000... which made me gulp!
Then I read Rosie's .... and I felt like I didn't have anything... lol.
xn = Christan man=man -- Acts 11:26 "....and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch".
Barney Fife is my hero! He only uses an abacus with 14 rows!
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I've owned my library for about 25 year, but seriously began buying resources about 15 years ago.
To make myself feel better, I think about how much I have spent on cars I no longer own and satellite/streaming tv the past 25 years. These are all gone, but I still have my library which hasn't depreciated in value and I'll be able to pass it on when I'm gone.
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xnman said:
I did try to estimate my Logos everything.... and I came up with close to $10,000... which made me gulp!
@xnman, no need to estimate if you are a "new" user. For website orders, you can just go here and scroll all the way down.https://www.logos.com/account/orders?limit=all
I will confess that the money I have saved with my faculty discount far outweighs what the seminary has paid me. [:D] My average price per book rounds up to $1.67. But like @abondservant, the value to me has been incalculable!
I just published an OT Survey through Tyndale Momentum, and I am hoping it makes it into the Faithlife ecosystem at some point for the most useless vanity purchase of all. [:D]Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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Rosie Perera said:
Tagging. I haven't kept up with the tagging as new books have come into my library
Agreed, curation is crucial to having a useful library.
I tend to rely on collections, sorted by my ratings.
And I tag anything that doesn't turn up under a topic I expect.Collections for every Bible book and section (e.g. Torah, Wisdom, ...).
Collections for theological themes/traditions.
Collections for journals of different types (exegetical, academic, ...)
Collections for 2nd temple lit, ancient lit, Bibles in specific languages.
Collections for church history (divided by periods and traditions).
Collections for authories (e.g. N. T. Wright's non-commentary books).I guess it's obvious from my collections that I'm a Bib Theol guy. Part of the usefulness of Logos is being about to index the library for the specific discipline/approach each of us is using.
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This thread is a great reminder that value is relative.
I agree that the value of a library is also directly related to being able to access resources when you want to do so which is why I have used Rosie's system that I adopted many years ago I have faithfully tagged all of my resources and make a concerted effort to continue to do so I they enter my library.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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xnman said:
Well... just reading through this thread.... it is easy for me to see everyone is richer than I am.... and I wish everyone well with that...
I did try to estimate my Logos everything.... and I came up with close to $10,000... which made me gulp!
Then I read Rosie's .... and I felt like I didn't have anything... lol.
I doubt that I am richer than you. LOL. But ... I sometimes own things for brief periods of time that only people richer than me usually have.
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Justin Gatlin said:
@xnman, no need to estimate if you are a "new" user. For website orders, you can just go here and scroll all the way down.https://www.logos.com/account/orders?limit=all
Please note that returns over the years may inflate the total amount given.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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