I am fortunate enough to work in a large academic library, and my interests are pretty aligned with the collection scope of the library - so I effectively have an extension of more than 3 million books that I can check out at short notice, plus the ability to request for pretty much anything (that is not out of scope) ;). That gave me the opportunity to check out these titles recently:
- The physical copy of Automata Studies v.34 (1956), which features notes taken by R. S. Pierce on a John von Neumann lecture “Probabilistic Logics and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components”
- Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps by Jacques Bertin - a seminal work on visualisation and graphical communication - and that sits underneath TAOCP
- Effective AWK Programming 4E by Arnold Robbins
- Programming titles by Brian Kernighan
Now I am going to browse at Mirror Worlds: Or: The Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox… How Will It Happen and What Will It Mean by David Gelernter - published in 1991, but will be an interesting reflection 32 years later, especially now that Apple Vision Pro is released.
My personal collection is mostly focused on design, travel and biographies - plus classic works that I can access via libraries, but nonetheless would like to refer to quickly (and perhaps for that warm feeling of owning those books).