So, yeh, I hardly ever let go of a book I own. Have more hardcopy books now than I have shelving for. It’s a problem. Ebooks to the rescue? Well, sorta. First, not long after it was up and running, I requested a CD of all the books Gutenberg-dot-org had at the time. Offloaded those text files to other storage, stored the CD and had LOTS of reading to do.
Not enough, though.
When downloads from Gutenberg became available, I began regular searches for ebook duplicates of my most significant hardcopy books, other books I wanted to read but had not yet obtained, etc. About that time, Baen-dot-com lsted its free library of sci-fi books. I’ve been a sci-fi reader since third grade, so. . . Got ’em all (and read ’em, and updated as new freebies became available). Then I started also buying eARCs from Baen in their bundles of six or more eARCs for $18. Then buying others at list prices. (Crafty, crafty Baen: sucked me in all right!). Then I just started looking for freebie ebooks in general. Found military manuals, preparedness books, all kinds of how-to and craft books, history, theology, math, science, etc., all over the web, oh, and and free books from Amazon, as well.
I am now behind on my reading quite a bit. I have also been storing all ebooks in multiple formats (when available or convertible) on different media on different storage devices, some of which are ALWAYS offline and relatively safe from loss by various means. Different formats, in part, because I enjoyed correcting the text of the eARCs from Baen. . . in the html formats (mobi format is a PITA to edit–for me at least).
So, now my thousands of hardcopy books have much, much more than been surpassed by double in my ebook collection, and I NEED to read faster. . . The more I learn, the more I discover I don’t know. Of course.
There are more books than a man would ever be able to read in this life.
My wife took care of my hard copy collection a long time ago. So most of my books are e-books. I convert different formats using Calibre software.
Recently I have taken up bookbinding as yet another hobby and am printing up and binding a few of the better ones I have. It’s not inexpensive to do though, unless you use a service to print the text blocks.
I rebound quite a few older books that came into my possession in poor condition, back about 30 years ago. It can be a bit expensive, and it takes at least pretty good attention to detail, as well. I used leather on a few, and even gilded page edges on two (gifts), just cos I wanted to.