I might need it someday…..Not!
I have a similar story. I went to culinary school and was a chef. I had accumalated a wall of cook books. My passions were Pacific Rim cuisine, Southwestern style and Creole. Every time we moved, I boxed them up, carted them to the next abode and lovingly arrranged them back on their shevles. One day at our previous house, I was looking at that wall of culinary ideas, thoughts and solutions and came to the realization it wasn’t the books that I wanted, it was the content. It was 2008 and I had just become and early user of Evernote and had an idea, what if I scanned the books and put them all into Evernote.
The content of the cook books would be searchable and digital and I’d never have to move them again. Since I didn’t have a book scanner, I took an approach I had at hand. I used a scroll saw, cut the binding off the books, then they were just a stack of recipes. It took a couple of months, but I took apart and scanned all but the rarest and most unique cook books I had.
Now I have a short shelf of about a dozen really good cook books and few special ones in a small box with some out of print books on Hawaiian history.
The real cool part is that I can, for instance, search Evernote for Chicken Florentine and get about a dozen really good choices from among dozens of cook books in seconds. It would have taken quite a bit longer to source even few choices from the actual books.