Hi
I had been discussing what should be done with OS/2 books when the owners want to get rid of them.
The discussion is still on-going but there are some options I want to share:
1)
DO NOT donate your books to your local library. Before doing this discuss with your local library what are they going to do with those books. Right now there are a lot of library that do not want older books (80's - 90's), and when they grab old books they first try to sell them (for a very cheap price to students) and if they are not able to sell them they just recycle it. So it is good to first talk to the library to know what do they do with old books before donating them.
2) Posting the request on the forum: Another good options is to post the books that you want to find a new home for on this OS2World forums. Sometimes there are users and developers that are interested on a specific book and some arrangement can be reached between the two sides.
3) The OpenLibrary of the Internet Archive. The OpenLibrary is an library that is on the web. They scan books and make it available on the site, and as far I can know it seems that do not have copyright issues because they only allow one person at a time to view the book online (You can not copy them, only borrow them).
Check the OS/2 books that they have scanned.
The OpenLibrary also accepts books donation and they scan them to upload them to the online library.
Check it out here.
So, I'm starting to think that it is a good idea to donate any OS/2 book that you want to get rid off to (but to be preserved) at:
Internet Archive
BOOK DONATIONS
300 Funston Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94118 The only issue is that they do not offer any timeframe on when the book is going to be scanned, but it will eventually get scanned, and what else can you expect for a free service. This is a lot better than getting the books recycled and loosing OS/2 knowledge. Maybe an issue can be that the book owner needs to pay the shipping cost of it.
For the moment this looks like a good alternative, but I'm open for more ideas. What do you think?
Regards