Monday, September 03, 2007

dispatch from madison

I've come up to Madison, where today I will complete packing up my office. I started putting my back issues of the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review in boxes to move them, and then I stopped. I should not move them. Yet I am having trouble not moving them. Argh. I just took them out of the box and put them back on a shelf. What to do?

For now, I'm going to worry about other things I'm packing. But, what to do with paper copies of major journals? Tossing them feels like a big decision because of its permanence--as in establishing henceforth I will not accumulate print journals. This is, after all, the 21st century. Put them on the free table, where eventually they will get recycled, right?

8 comments:

Monsoon said...

Oh, the dissonance! I hate it when that happens. Good luck with your decision making and have a safe move. Is this the last leg of it?

Gwen said...

Put them on a "free" table and walk away. You don't need them. It was a huge relief to get rid of mine.

Ang said...

I put a huge load of stuff on the free table and haven't looked back. It was great.

Brady said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brady said...

Not to enable your pack-ratting, but if you are averse to reading things on screen (I sure am, but maybe that's just me), I think cherry picking any issues which contain well-loved or oft-cited articles might be forgivable, especially if you'd just have to print things out again later.

Sara said...

Put them on the free table and look forward, not back!

yli said...

how about this. your library probably has advice or information on how/where to donate them.

Eszter said...

Libraries in other countries can often use the donations. Sometimes they have funds to pay for the shipping. I realize you don't have time to deal with this right now, but it is something to consider in the future.