Donations. Who'd have 'em?

Had set up a visit to a widow's house today. About 15 minutes on the train from here.

A computing academic had heard of this astronomer who'd died leaving lots of books. The plan was I'd go and see if there was anything we could take for the cosmologists. Seemed like a reasonable plan.

I was met at the other end by the contact link who drove me to the house in question where it soon became apparent that as ex-president of a local astronomical group he'd already had all the astronomy books. All that were left were a few history and photography volumes. I wasn't really the right person to be there at all. Still, there were some interesting volumes I could make a pile of and take away for the proper librarian to consider (and bin?) and I could politely enthuse and observe the back yard observatory and the like. There were even a few exploration books that weren't really relevant for us but might be valuable to my former former job. (One was autographed but I resisted the temptation to hold on to it - despite permission from the widow to take anything I wanted personally. I could also have updated my dog-eared Lord of the Rings. And does anyone want a biography of Tolkien by Carpenter?) The photography books I left but took the details of as they looked like the kind of thing that TheOldPlace might find a home for. I've emailed the list on to L.

A decent enough pile and polite conversation done, the contact drove me back to the university where the haul quickly overwhelmed the amount of space I have here. But that just motivated me to deal with it more quickly. Bit disappointed that S, who looks after history, and who's been doing a headless chicken act of late was so dismissive given that I'd saved her a trip. But hopefully there were some useful things. I don't think I'll be adding much to the 520s though.