Job Discussion Forums

[lotuseater]

For some reason, I have held on to a couple of my university text books (pronunciation, contemporary linguistics) and had thought to carry them along when I go overseas.

Also have a crate of supplemental material that I think would be useful, but then what do I know what would be useful until I get someplace?

From what I have read here, toting books is generally considered unnecessary baggage.

Take the gear and not need/use OR not carry and wish I had. OR just forget about all of the $ invested, buy an eReader, and be done with it?

Regards,
LE

[Tudor]

Maybe have a look and see how many of your books can be downloaded on-line. I've got hundreds of TEFL books and handouts on my hard-drive (either downloaded or copied off colleagues) and I'm currently in the process of scanning my remaining bits and pieces. It's a time-consuming job, but when I move on, bar a couple of reference books (e.g. Swan), I don't want to be carting boxes or crates to another country with me.

The thing is as well, even though I have all these resources, I only really use a tiny percentage of them anyway so, as you say, you could drag all those books half way round the world with you and then find you never use them.

[Sashadroogie]

englishtips.org

Never leave home without it.

[Tudor]

Exactly what I was alluding to Sasha, just didn't want to get into trouble for mentioning other sites on here!

I hope the current furore over megaupload and similar sites doesn't have an adverse effect on this great resource.

[LongShiKong]

A year ago I scanned the last of my resource books, then sold them on eBay. The advantages:
a) less/lighter baggage: N.A. flights now charge for 2nd check-ins;
b) you can search PDFs faster and easier--even many at a time with Acrobat Pro, especially if you index and catalog them;
c) you can copy text, pictures, or 'snapshots' from PDFs to paste elsewhere;
d) you don't need anything other than Reader to display them on a phone, tablet, or computer screen and with Acrobat Pro, you can embed (or add button links to) audio and video. You can even add or edit text blocks.

[lotuseater]

Sasha, WOW; thanks for esltips tip. At the risk of sounding stupid, now I just have to figure it all out!

Long, the scan process sounds like a wonderful idea. Time is not my friend right now with regard to take/leave decisions, but can sure give the scan thing a whirl with some of the supplemental pages.

I'll probably end up toting texts and then using the leafs in the loo.

Regards,
LE