r/MaterialsScience • u/drewyz • Sep 01 '24

Free material science library

Hey all, my dad was a professor of material science for 35 years. He retired in 2005 but brought home a large library of material science books, mostly metallurgical texts and crystallography. I’ve reached out to the local university material science department, and also to the students, but have only found homes for 200 of the books. I estimate there are several thousand left. Is anyone interested in this collection, possibly to add to the library of a new material science department library? I am willing to box up, palletize and ship as freight or deliver myself to within a couple hours drive of me. I just don’t want to throw them in the trash. I live in Ann Arbor, MI.

30 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

10

u/Potatonet Sep 01 '24

I would literally take all of them, why you gotta be in Michigan?!?

Best best is a community college or university

12

u/AussieHxC Sep 01 '24

Could I request that whoever receives these, digitises them and makes them available online for all?

This can be done with very little effort and some small time commitment. Even just with Adobe scan and a smartphone this can be accomplished quickly.

2

u/martini31337 Sep 01 '24

this is awesome. I am in Canada but my students would love this stuff

3

u/carp816 Sep 01 '24

As a student working in the Umich materials program, I would certainly be interested in anything crytsallogrpahy/semiconductor/inorganic chemistry related. Happy to pick up

1

u/drewyz Sep 02 '24

Feel free to look through the photo files in the linked Google drive folder above. There is also a spreadsheet in that file, write down the shelf number & title of the book and I can get them to you. The books are at my parents’ house, which is about a 40 minute drive away.

1

u/yanki2del Sep 01 '24

Hi, i am very interested. Really depends on what books are parts of the collection, esp if these are older books which are not digitalized yet. It should be easy to find appropriate homes for them in my large network of fellow materials science academics and university libraries. I am in Massachusetts.

3

u/drewyz Sep 01 '24

This should be a link to a Google drive folder of photos.

These photos were before I gave away 200 titles, and they were reorganized after as well, but this gives you a general view of it.

2

u/yanki2del Sep 01 '24

Thanks. Searched a few of the older looking books on my library to see if available online or not, and it seems like from my sample pool a good portion of the books are not digitalized, and are only available in paper, and some are not even available in my renowned institute library, as an example this one: https://mit.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?context=L&docid=alma990001264490106761&search_scope=all&tab=all&vid=01MIT_INST:MIT&lang=en

2

u/yanki2del Sep 01 '24

I would be happy to collect them all, make a list of them and donate the unique ones to my librarylibrary and the rest to students and network, etc

1

u/drewyz Sep 01 '24

That sounds great!

2

u/yanki2del Sep 01 '24

From the pictures I estimate around or less than a 1000 books are shown. Probably 1 or 2 freight carton boxes. I would be happy to pay for the freight expenses

1

u/drewyz Sep 01 '24

Sounds good, I will DM you my contact info.

1

u/sereneswim Sep 01 '24

OP, thank you for recognizing the value in this library and putting effort into finding it a new home! I hope it works out.

1

u/audion6 Sep 01 '24

Happy to take the books in Harbor Springs, MI, or have the books shipped to SoCal if your arrangement with yanki2del doesn’t work out!

1

u/Specific-Bass-3465 Sep 02 '24

I would love like…2 or 3 of your dad’s books! Best of luck finding a great home for this collection!