Also, back a ways, thanks for the Hild glossary--I am reading it. Didn't mean to, but accidentally hit "purchase one click" rather than "send sample". Oh well.

I am still not entirely convinced of the permanence of e-books - we technically only license e-books, not own them - so I continue to buy and keep hardbacks of my serious faves. Paperbacks, on the other hand, I weed.

I need to do some serious weeding of the books ... haven't for a while, so it's overdue.

There's a group that has had a short-term used book store every year - Turning the Page - they collect books, sell them, use the proceeds for literacy efforts. Now they've set up a longer-term place and I plan to start hauling books to them ... as soon as I can (1) weed and (2) get my ass in gear.

I need to do some serious weeding of the books ... haven't for a while, so it's overdue.

This is a big part of it. I bought my house and put the books in my guest room since they no longer had to be in my bedroom or office, and now they are out of sight out of mind! Combine that with the change in FAA regulations meaning I'm no longer buying books at the airport or to read on the plane in paperback, and I suddenly feel like I need to do something with those I have.

Bennett, I am downloading my kindle books and stripping the DRM. I bought them, they are mine.

I have Kindle on my iPad mini, so I'm hoping to cut back on the amount that pile up. Deleting an ebook I've read but have no interest in rereading is painless. My only problem is, that for my jury duty days, I can't bring the iPad in - they don't allow anything with a camera (a woman got arrested for taking a picture of someone in the courthouse - she said she was trying to use the selfie camera to check her hair ... but managed to take a photo of someone else).

Bennett, I am downloading my kindle books and stripping the DRM. I bought them, they are mine.

That's my position as well.

I'm there in theory. Just haven't got organized enough to strip DRM in practice.

But I'll keep my favorite hardbacks anyway - Bujold, Heyer, Dunnett, etc. I'm just more ... comfortable, secure, happy, something ... with them around the house.

How do you strip DRM? Or maybe I should ask why you do?

You do, because then you can convert it to different formats, and it ensures you can keep a copy of the ebook without being subject to (for example) Amazon's whim.

As to how, you use Calibre. If you google, there are good instructions about how to do it. It's not too difficult.

Or maybe I should ask why you do?

Mostly in order to be able to read an e-book on a different device - most of the library books available through BPL are Adobe Protected PDFs (through Overdrive), which the last time I checked can only be opened on a PC. Not a Mac, and not on a mobile device. So I strip the DRM in order to put them on my phone/iPad/Kindle/etc.

Likewise, if I ever decide I want to switch to a non-Kindle e-reader, I would either have to break the DRM on my Amazon books or buy them all again.

[edit: And yeah, Calibre plugins will do this easily.]