The Love of Older Reference Books

I admit to being a nerd about obtaining reference books for my personal library. And extra nerdiness happens when said books are vintage. There’s something about paying homage to these elderly veterans from many a library bookshelf in their days.

My library used to contain hundreds of reference books. The Internet’s unfortunately proven to be so bloody useful and quick for frequent needs that I eventually sold, traded or donated away most of my reference books. What remained were the unusual or the vintage volumes whose info still might be Googleable but never apporaching the delight of browsing in such books.

On a recent trade with local West Side Book Shop, I added these two interesting ones (three actually, since one was a two-fer) to my library. Seems I’m always on the look-out for older reference volumes, yet they’re becoming difficult to find these days.

While I expect these "new" ones, like my other, similar library residents, won’t see deep use, I expect when I open their seasoned covers and browse within it will be a pleasant analog experience.