University Course Packets

Unclutterer ForumsUnclutter Your Life in One WeekMondayYour Office

(11 posts) (8 voices)

Started 1 year ago by nishnu
Latest reply from Irulan
RSS feed for this topic

Overall Rating: votes

Tags:

nishnu
Member

Hi Everyone!

I have a question for you. I graduated from my Master's program last year and held onto university course packets (these aren't books, they're collection of papers and readings assembled by the teacher and sold in the university bookstore as coursework for class) thinking that I may use them someday. I am moving again and I realize that not one day has gone by when I missed those books. I am officially ready to get rid of them but don't know how to !

Does anyone know if libraries accept these books ? I know that resale is not an option since its not a book as such. I don't have the heart to simply throw it out.

Does anyone have any ideas ?

Nisha

Posted 1 year ago #
Another Deb
Member

You might contact the professor and see if they are offering the course with the same materials. If so, they may appreciate a donation of copies that can be checked out to students. The library at that school may want the same.

High school teachers may appreciate the material as a way to supplement their own knowledge or as a resource for short clips of challenging material for their students.

Post to blogs in that discipline or Freecycle and offer the material. Someone out there may be looking for the very thing!

Now I am curious-what's the topic? :-)

Posted 1 year ago #
Ann
Member

Nishnu - my husband also has problems tossing "knowledge" so we often have several editions of textbooks in his office. Not to mention the journals, which he is slowly getting rid of when he ascertains that they are available on the internet (the medical and physiology journals are slowly being added backwards...so a few more years and my garage will be clean!!).

Posted 1 year ago #
lucy1965
Member

Nishnu, material can age out of usefulness faster than you'd think: my husband got a firm kick in the pants when we started researching donations of old software and computer books. None of the local library systems, including the university, will accept computer-related material more than three years old; the company he works for has more than enough copies in their own archives. If none of the specialty networking groups want it, we're going to have to put it on craigslist/recycle the lot.

So if you're going to donate, sooner is better.

Posted 1 year ago #
Irulan
Member

I'd be wary of donating some of that stuff, at least if you are in the U.S. The reason that you purchased a course packet in the first place instead of receiving printouts or Blackboard access to the articles and readings is the royalty/copyright issue. At the very least, you should contact your University's bookstore. They should have an idea of what is appropriate given how many people were in the class that required the course packet (which is important for copyright) and how many people are in your target donation group (which probably matters but I'm not sure).

Posted 1 year ago #
nws2002
Member

I've seen notebooks from authors and professors at my local library, I'm not sure if they would accept the course packets or now. They are usually a really good collection of information for that particular subject.

This next part doesn't really answer your question since you seem ready to give it up, but I'll post anyways. :)

If you think you may need it one day you can always scan it in. This converts the paper clutter into digital clutter, but at least it takes up less room. That's what I did with all my university papers that I couldn't convince myself to just toss, but also couldn't see a real use for at a later date.

Where I went to college the library never had the course packets, neither did the bookstore. You had to go to the Kinkos across the street, tell them what professor you had and which class you were taking, then they printed out the lot and bound it however you wanted. It usually worked out being cheaper than buying a book, so I never complained. Most included the professor's lecture notes which gives you an outline to take your own notes on.

Posted 1 year ago #
Periwinkle
Member

Irulan - but surely that's covered by first use? It's the same as buying a regular book (which you can't just print out due to the copyright) and then donating it. If you copy it and then donate the original, that probably breaches the copyright (or possibly even copying it and keeping the original, depending) but I can't see why there would be a problem with just donating it.

Posted 1 year ago #
trillie
Member

Nisha, I had a lot of copies from books that were obligatory reading in the first few semesters, but I never read nor needed them afterwards. I put up a notice on the bulletin board at the university department, and then some really happy freshman students came to pick them up :o)

Posted 1 year ago #
Irulan
Member

@Periwinkle: It would definitely be covered by first use if it were a bound book, thus being passed to only one entity at a time. University course packets are often loose, though, so derivative copies are still a possibility, plus different items in the packet are under different copyrights (notes, journal articles, book chapters). My only worry is that items copied for non-profit educational purposes still have limits on the number of copies that can be made before permission is required from the original author, and this holds true for copyrighted course notes produced by the professor, as well.

Posted 1 year ago #
nishnu
Member

Thanks everyone for that quick response ! All the course packets I have with me are spiral bound collections of copyrighted work such as Harvard Business School case studies and other such paid research so I guess Irulan's concerns are valid here.

I contacted some administrative members of staff and asked them what I could do and they suggested I shred it !! I dont want to spend more money on something I don't already want and certainly not the time required to personally shred a 400 page work.

I like the idea of contacting the professor (Thanks Another Deb!). I just graduated from an Information Systems program so its all computers and related topics.

Thanks again :)

Posted 1 year ago #
Irulan
Member

You may not have to shred it yourself. Your university library or campus store may have shred and recycling options available to students. At my school, we could give sensitive paperwork to the department to shred. It's worth a quick look. If not, you could always have a bonfire. That's what I'd like to do with a lot of my coursework =)

Posted 1 year ago #

Reply

You must log in to post. If you do not already have an account, you can register here.