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I have accumulated a lot of textbooks, many of which I have yet to read, and I am wondering how to determine the relevance of those books for me based on my field of study, my interests, and academic relevance (which I suspect varies by field of study).

What are some techniques for determining the relevance of a textbook for future reading?

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    Looking at the table of contents is a good start. I don't understand the presence of "by date" in your title; are you suggesting that the date when the textbook was written is likely to help you in deciding whether to read it? I don't think that will generally be true. Apr 12, 2015 at 17:28

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To determine the relevance of a textbook for future reading, you have to extrapolate your past field of study and interests, based upon which you bought the textbooks in the first place.

If you intend to remain in your current field, keep the books immediately pertinent for that discipline. Otherwise, keep mainly the textbooks on reusable skills, such as math and statistics, computer programming, foreign languages, etc.

You may also want to ask senior students/researchers what books they kept on their shelves.

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If there's a book you haven't used for +3 years, it would be safe to keep it in storage until the need comes up, when that happens you can (almost) always find the book in the library or borrow it from a friend.

I sold/gave away almost all my textbooks before I went to graduate school. It's better for a textbook to be studied by a student who needs it than to gather dust on my bookshelf.

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