What to do with a personal library when you emigrate

[lethargic_man]

It's looking increasingly likely now that I'll be emigrating to Germany, which raises the question of what to do with my possessions. Specifically,^* since I came to London I set about amassing a personal library, of all the books I'd read from the library but wished to reread or lend to friends, and it's now quite large.

* I.e. I am choosing to concentrate here on this, and ignore, for example, my succah, which, given that I bought the components of it and assembled it myself, I also have a sentimental attachment to, or my bike, which I've a good mind to take with me by travelling overland by train, with bike and suitcase and careful planning.

Over the course of the last year, I've been weeding out of it anything I didn't think was good, or had managed to completely forget the content of (even if my book log says that I thought it was good), or was never likely to want to reread or consult again. However, that still leaves over two and a half Billy bookcases' worth, all told.

I know there are some people who would get rid of the lot (and others who would attempt to sell the books, then buy the same ones again at the far end), but I'm rather attached to my books; I want to take them with me. The question is: is this sensible? This is going to cost!

Recently, I've been considering another purge of my bookshelves, but this time it would have to involve books I know are good. aviva was horrified when I mentioned this to her. But these are books that I'm simply never likely to read again.

Which raises the question of what the point of a personal library is. Despite my intentions, it's very rare that I actually get around to rereading any of my books; there's too much I've yet to ever read for that! But I do sometimes lend them to friends, and I do also from time to time take one down and browse bits of it. And those who have attended my Shabbos lunches know I can rarely get through one without taking a good handful of books down to consult, read from or just generally wave around. But regardless of any of these, I find the mere presence of books I've known and loved to be comforting.^†

But how high a price for transport does that sentimental attachment really justify? Anyone got any thoughts here? Or, indeed, advice from anyone else who's moved countries (or distances too long to make sticking everything in a rental van (assuming my library would even fit now!) sensible^‡) on what is intended to be a permanent basis.

† Another argument against e-books, I suppose, though since I do the majority of my reading on Shabbos, I'm never going to be switching to those. Plus, as rysmiel first pointed out back in <checks> 1998, I'm a hardcopy romantic.

‡ Yes, I've looked into this. It would require around twelve hours' driving, but it seems to be just about impossible to hire a van for a one way trip out of the UK. The sensible solution would be to hire one at either end and either drive it back myself or find someone else prepared to. But it's probably cheaper just to crate my possessions up and send them off.

Comments

[doseybat]

Given the opportunity to bring something emotionally comfortable that makes me feel better to a foreign country I probably would. Those books would also be less well known and harder to get in Germany, so could help social integration if you were to introduce new local people to them and lend them out?

[green_knight]

I moved many many more books than that, and while there were some decisions I would have made better had I not been under emotional pressure, I don't regret moving most of the things I did.

2.5 bookcases isn't a lot. That will easily fit into a small van, with space to chuck in a few other things

You're right on the one-way rent option - that's a silly one - and in all honesty I would not recommend doing it in less than four days in total. In times gone by I've done that (though Berlin is a couple of hours further still); but it's very tiring and a rather silly thing to do; the risk not paying attention is just too great.

Seeing what a professional mover would charge is definitely an option if you don't want to drive. (And if you want a second driver; holler. I've had friends help me do the same; I know many of the roads already, I can sling boxes with the best of 'em.)

Professional movers are also useful as a storage option - they charge a lot less for storing things than self-storage places do, so don't discount that as a short-term solution.

[forestofglory]

When I moved form IA back to CA we filled a "pod" (eg large wooden crate) full of our stuff and had it shipped to us on the CA end. It was about the same cost as renting a moving truck, but much easier for us.

Something like that may be worth considering if it is a option where you live.

[liv]

When I moved from Sweden back to England, I freighted my books. I probably had fewer than you do, but it wasn't ludicrously expensive as a proportion of the overall costs of moving. I will try to dig out relevant information from my email, but you'd probably do as well with a web-search as with recommendations that are more than five years out of date.

I definitely agree that you should purge as much as possible. I very much understand the importance of just having books you love around in your living space, and I think that is worth substantial money. But there are costs and not just the direct financial ones, so you really should pare down to only books you positively want to keep.

I have heard a rough estimate of $1 per year per book as the cost of owning them (I don't think the estimate is accurate enough to care about exchange rates, call it 1€ or £1 or whatever). And it's not exactly like that, it's that when you move you have to pay to transport the books, and you have to rent or buy space in your dwelling to store the books, and you have to buy and potentially transport bookshelves, and in extreme cases you have to pay for a building that's strong enough to hold the weight. And the more books you have the more time it takes to find anything and you get more dust so you have to spend more time cleaning.

So if you're definitely planning to move to Germany exactly once to what will be your family home and stay there forever, the cost of shipping the books isn't really that great. But owning the books has a cost, which is often really hidden because it's not directly money that you just hand over. So I think you should figure out how much money it's worth to you to have books around (is £200 per year reasonable? £2000? I'm guessing the number of books you have is going to fall somewhere in that range). And accept that you're going to end up paying a chunk of that cost in a lump sum if/when you actually do the emigrating part. Though in some ways that's comforting because you can think of it as amortized over the next several decades.

[liv]

Right, details. FIDI was recommended to me as a meta-search thing for international relocation. I paid ~£600 to move all my personal effects by freight from Sweden to England, using the company Maxtrans who are unlikely to be useful to you as they're Swedish, but there are lots of companies offering similar services. When I moved to Sweden I used Simarco, who do ship to Germany, but they are mainly geared to logistics for companies rather than individuals. It's ten years ago but I have a distant recollection that they were able to offer me a part-load in a big lorry that was doing commercial work, and that cost in the order of a few hundred pounds too.

Because I rented a furnished flat in Sweden, for what was always intended to be a temporary post, I was only moving books (plus kitchen goods and other small items). If you're planning to move any kind of large furniture (chairs, beds, bookcases, white goods etc), then the marginal cost of moving your books as well is really pretty small, in my experience. Likewise if you aren't too fussed about an exact moving date, but just ask for whenever the freight company happens to be going your way anyway, you can save money.