What to do with my collections? I’ve got lots of books. Many are niche, while others are textbooks or recordkeeping, some are antique, fiction is in the set too.

My cousin recently had to help her parents move into a memory care facility. In that process, she and her sisters had to struggle with all of the property that was left behind: books, kitchen supplies, hobbies, furniture and more. There was a long list of property to take care of without any planning or preparation. It took weeks and a lot of trips to resolve it.

What could I do to ease that process for my family?

If you come to my house one of the first things you see are my bookshelves. I think it would be nice for their contents to be less of a burden to my sisters if my health suddenly deteriorates. If I can’t live independently, or if I die suddenly, I could help with some preparation. I can create a system so that they could know what to do without needing to devote emotional resources.

My first foray into this project is to mark books that could be dealt with easily. I’ll go through them and mark them inside the front cover. The idea is that my family could go through the shelves and any that are marked red will be an easy first pass.

Perhaps a second level of this is to find places that would value the books as a donation. For example, I have 15 or 20 different Bible translations. Perhaps there is someone who would use them? There are a couple seminaries near here that might appreciate them. The reference books like a thesaurus, dictionary or writing style guides might be useful to someone and there are a few others that are there also might find them valuable.

I started by marking with a red marker, but for the rest, I’ll use a red sticker instead. Taking a book down, writing in it and putting it back is awkward; putting a sticker would be a lot easier.

It’s an interesting exercise to inventory what I have and see what I’ve forgotten about.