My resource dilemma

It's been said that the "making of books there is no end". I don't know who said it, I think it might have been Mark Twain... but...

I have literally thousands of books in my Logos program. I have been taking note to how many I actually use. To be honest, it looks like I use (optimistically) maybe 15% of all my books that I own. I have kept an Excel spreadsheet and listed ones that do use and how often I use them.

I am wondering if I should get rid of some of my books ... My first thought is "NO, I paid for them, I'll keep them!" But then my second thought is "Yes, get rid of them because they are wasted storage since I don't use them!"

So I'm at a dilemma... Anyone got any suggestions? Thanks!

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MJ. Smith

Anyone got any suggestions?

My suggestion is to make a conscious effort to use them more often. Narrow reading yields narrow mind, sometimes so narrow as to not really understand why one believes what they do. Nothing like a bit of controversy to keep the mind agile and the reasoning firm.

Mike Binks

So I'm at a dilemma... Anyone got any suggestions?

Yep.

I have literally thousands of books in my Logos program. I have been taking note to how many I actually use.

I have kept an Excel spreadsheet and listed ones that do use and how often I use them.

Stop doing that and use the time to read some of them. (Start with Ecclesiastes 😉 )

I am wondering if I should get rid of some of my books ... My first thought is "NO, I paid for them,

My first thought is NO someday somebody might reference them and I might need to look up the reference.

But then my second thought is "Yes, get rid of them because they are wasted storage since I don't use them!"

Given the cost of computer storage is this really a problem? It is not as if you need an extra room to keep them in.

scooter

So I'm at a dilemma... Anyone got any suggestions? Thanks!

Get rid: Do you mean sell? Do you mean send to the cloud?

May I use me as an example? I usually read in my lane coz I need to solidify what I know. Just today I opened an Arminian book on salvation to read + underline, never having done this before, ever. Now I'm in to 'the other 85%.' I am in Otherworld - a piece of it I already owned.

The 85% is needed, as MJ said above. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow, but the day after you may wish to Explore Beyond Core, to dip into the Other, to read One More of what you already have Stored.

In a sense these 85% are free, as you have already paid for them.

What should you read on? How about this? Rosie puts forth many books to vote for. Find one that interests you, >> then read one already owned that explores at least a similar topic.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306978#Comment_1306978

Stop doing that and use the time to read some of them. (Start with Ecclesiastes 😉 )

Too subtle. [*-)]

KevinV

I wouldn't get rid of anything, if that's even possible to completely get rid of a resource in Logos. I've hidden things that I know I'd never seek out or even be interested in if it showed up in a search, but that's a very small percentage of what I have in my Library. And being hidden, I can always unhide it if the need arises.

There are several books in my library that I don't have immediate plans to read cover to cover, but I like the fact that they show up in search results. It's nice having more references than I may need than not enough. And I've read several books that I hadn't planned on until they came up as a related resource in a query I was doing and after reading the related passage I decided to read the entire book. I've come across some good stuff that way.

So I'd say no to getting rid of, but yes to hiding if you're feeling cluttered or know you have no use for the volume.

Joseph Turner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1306999#Comment_1306999

It depends on what you do with your library. It's a research library, so I don't think the expectation is that you will read every book that you have, but they will often be linked from other resources that you do own, which will help you in your research. That's why I don't mind buying the extra resources in base packages. I often come across links in resources that I am pleasantly suprised lead to resources I own and didn't know it.

John

You don’t need to get rid of them, because they really don’t exist. They are just an invisible computer unlock code that says you own it but what you want is completely intangible. It isn’t taking up any space on your bookshelf.

Al Graham

It's been said that the "making of books there is no end". I don't know who said it, I think it might have been Mark Twain

Ecc 12:12 ...Of making many books there is no end, ...

Rosie Perera

Hard disk space is cheap these days.

I say keep the books. When you do a search in your Library, you don't only want to find hits in books you know of that you already use regularly, but also the surprising discoveries that you won't ever know about if you get rid of those 85% books.

Remember what it used to be like when we would do research in a physical library with a paper card catalogue in little drawers? We'd look up a topic and find a few books that were listed in the catalogue which covered that topic, and we'd take them out of the library (or sit in one of the carrels and skim through them and take notes). We didn't have to: (a) read those entire books; (b) read ALL the books in the entire library. But, we wouldn't have been able to do that research paper if the Library had decided to get rid of all the books that nobody had checked out ever yet.

Your Logos library is to you in miniature what the public library is/was to school kids: a larger source of material than you'd ever read in entirety yourself, but it has to be that way in order to have the chance of finding what you're looking for in the midst of it all.

Dave Hooton

I am wondering if I should get rid of some of my books ...

Hide some.

I revise my books from time to time, and today I hid 4 and unhid one. I hide those that do not interest me and have so far rated 176 that are borderline.

Some users have hidden thousands, I have hidden 500.

EastTN

I am wondering if I should get rid of some of my books ... My first thought is "NO, I paid for them, I'll keep them!" But then my second thought is "Yes, get rid of them because they are wasted storage since I don't use them!"

I feel your pain. There are books that I got as part of various packages that I am comfortably certain I'll never use - and not because I'm narrow-minded. I have, for instance, a translation of the Bible into French, which is a language I don't read, and both the Protestant and Catholic editions of Schaff's Early Church Fathers.

I haven't hidden anything so far, and I agree with the point that several have made about storage being so cheap today that disk space is not a real issue. But there is a cost in usability to having your library cluttered up with resources you're never going to use.

If you find a good answer, please share it!

xnman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1307124#Comment_1307124

Everyone makes some excellent points and I thank all of you! Dave reminded me that I can hide and unhide my books, which is probably what I will do.

I am a "bible first person" which means I compare everything to what I can prove the bible to say... and some of the books teach some things I just can't prove... which is probably why I will hide them. I am slowly reading all books in my library... but some ideas are just too far out there for me to justify finishing them. This will probably be on my list to hide...

Thanks to all. Great suggestions! [8-|]

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1307131#Comment_1307131

which is probably why I will hide them

It's worth mentioning that you can hide books or send them to the cloud.

Hiding them removes them from your library so they don't appear there and don't appear in searches / guides etc

Sending them to the cloud removes them from your local computer - you did mention storage space in your original post - but they are still visible in your library and will appear in some searches - but you can choose to just focus your attention on books you still have on your local drive.

With this second approach, if you did - at some point - want to refer to them they would be easy to access.

Both of the above options leave the books associated with your account.

If you want to totally remove them from your account you would need to request this from customer services - but then they would be gone and you couldn't get them back.

Apologies if you were already aware of all this but I thought it worth clarifying.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1307152#Comment_1307152

If you want to totally remove them from your account you would need to request this from customer services - but then they would be gone and you couldn't get them back.

Also, I don't believe you can do this with books that were acquired as part of a package. They can only remove the license that covers that book, which is the package license and would remove access to all the other books in that package.