I have at least 10 books that are now ‘deprecated’, for example Pro Spring covering Spring 1.2.
Is there something better to do than to throw them away?
What do you do with your ‘deprecated’ books?
From now on I try not to buy books about a given version of a given product so I hope the books I buy will not be deprecated too soon…
Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/650503/what-do-you-do-with-your-old-computer-books-closed
Deprecated books are covered with a bit of dust on my shelf.
It's been a while since I've bought a book that can be 'deprecated', since I tend not to buy any books anymore that cover some kind of technology. New tools and language come and go, and when you're a software developer, you'll learn those languages and tools fast enough.
What I do buy, are books about software development; programming methodologies, etc... Things that are not being deprecated very fast. (For instance: books about Domain Driven Design, Unit Testing / Test Driven Development, OO analysis, etc... ).
IMHO, these books are more valuable, since the things that are being taught in these books, can be applied in different languages. The concepts remain the same, whether you apply them to language A or B, it doesn't matter.
Sometimes it's worth offering them on Amazon or a similar online second-hand book store, on the off-chance that some poor code maintainer has to use an ancient version of some technology.
Alternatively, offer them to a local library if they're not totally valueless. In the UK at least, most library books on computing are even more deprecated than ones I'm prepared to get rid of (Learn Windows 3.1 in 24 hours, Advanced Microsoft Visual Basic 1.0, Programming on the ZX81).
The anti-destruction-of-books part of me gets into a fight with the recycling-for-the-polar-bears part of me and then my wife tells me we don't have the storage space and the alexandrian side shrinks away.
With reference material, dead techs are dead. You are not a library, recycling is the best you can do.
I once doubled the size of the local technical college's computing section with my books that I no longer needed. The feeling catharsis was amazing....
Once such books have passed their expiry date, I tend to use them as monitor stands. ;)
I use them as supports for whatever happens to need supporting - my computer table and my amplifier currently - and as ballast whenever I need ballast, for example when walking in the forest with a heavy backpack for exercise.
I keep them to show to my never-to-be child how we programmed when I was young.