The Bookbank: Knowledge for the End of the World

What is a Bookbank and Why Should You Have One?

While there are a great many websites and books out there with a wealth of information to help teach you how to survive a SHTF-type situation, there is only so much information one can take in, only so many skills you can learn and remember. And what if the SHTF turns into a complete collapse of civilization? On a global scale? Well, if you survived it, great! But then what? How do you go about rebuilding a life in whatever wide open world awaits?

That is where books come in. Every wastelander needs an extensive library. We all know that books are important for learning new skills, and that’s especially true for those of us who are preparing for civilization to go away permanently. Books are a valuable part of being prepared for a collapse. No one can know everything, so having a great reference collection in your supplies is essential.

Often this is called a “prepper library,” and it contains everything you could need to know in any collapse situation, from how to survive in the wilderness to how to build and operate a successful homestead off the grid. Field surgery using turn of the 19^th century medicine, animal husbandry, building a house like the Amish, chemistry formulas of the 1800s… Without having access to the right books, you are pretty much doomed.

Not only are books a critical part of learning new skills, they are also an important part of keeping you from going nuts after any collapse scenario. You are not going to have any internet and no one is generating content anymore. No Netflix, no Xbox, not even broadcast television or radio. So what exactly are you supposed to do to keep yourself occupied? Read is what, if you follow my advice. That means getting some books, both fiction and non-fiction stuff, even the classics.

By now you are probably wondering where you will get the money for all these books, and how will you store and transport them after a collapse. Well, that is where a bookbank comes in.

A bookbank is a collection of books, atlases, blueprints, plans, and papers, video and audio files, that are stored in digital form. Simple ruggedized flash drives are usually the best, and there are very large capacities available these days. Before we get into the actual materials you should have in your bookbank, let’s talk about what it will consist of physically.

The Bookbank Kit

First, there is your storage device. Avoid things with moving parts, such as hard disk drives and the like, solid-state devices such as flash drives are much more durable. Go for the largest capacity you can, as there is no such thing as having too much knowledge on hand. Remember to include all possible cables and adapters along with them, as you never know what they might have to be plugged into. It is a good practice to have at least one redundant copy on a separate storage device, preferably a different brand and/or design as well. Remember: Two is one, one is none.

Second, you need to have a dedicated reader system, also in redundancy if you can, and this should be something like a small sturdy, or ruggedized tablet. Yes, I know, the internet will be toast along with the power grid. But a regular old tablet has relatively low power consumption and is easily charged with a small solar battery. Unless you have a better idea of where to store a couple hundred thousand books, this is it.

Third, you should include a dedicated power supply outside of your other gear. The best things, in this case, are small battery storage devices specifically for smartphones and tablets, and they should have their own integrated solar charging system as well. There are several on the market, and some also include an emergency radio as well as a flashlight, and a hand crank charging system.

The last part of the bookbank kit would be protection. You want to be able to fit everything securely into a case that is waterproof, shockproof, lightweight, and hardened against things like electromagnetic pulses. The case should allow everything to fit snuggly, not bouncing and banging around inside. For hardening, I suggest everything be sealed into multiple layered Faraday Cages, and several companies make bags and other cases from such material for just this purpose.

That covers the physical aspects of your bookbank. Now let’s have a look at what should be stored within.

The Knowledge of the World

Knowledge is everything, not just power. And the goal of creating a bookbank is to have everything you can in that respect. You can begin with the simple and most immediately important things, such as survival manuals, books on off-grid living and homesteading, and medical texts. But really, think about what this bookbank could mean. It is not just a collection of information to help you get by after the collapse. It is all the knowledge needed to rebuild infrastructure and civilization from scratch when modern civilization disappears or ceases to function.

That is a pretty big task to bite off, and maybe you won’t be the one to see it through, but at some point, maybe right from the start, you won’t be alone, and someone will need to build a new future.

So, where do we get all this stuff? All over, really. The internet is a vast resource of available information, all you have to do is know what you are looking for and how to seek it out. Download everything you can. Even things that are useless to you, such as material for educating young children, and stuff that is far beyond your own knowledge, like physics textbooks and writings. Get it all. Auto repair manuals, cookbooks, reference libraries, atlases and maps, travel guides, all of it. You do not know what will be needed, or even what the situation will be when you do need it, so collect everything you can, in every format available, especially PDF.

A good exercise is to sit down and roleplay the situations you could face. Think of things that you might need to do, such as dig a well or build a barn, and then find the information for that, as well as related subjects. Think about skills you already have at a basic level, and look for books that can help you continue to advance in those skills later.

I have put together a list of some good sources below that can get you started. Just about everything you could want can be found through one of them. In some cases, you may have specific titles you are looking for, and there are a couple of websites below that allow you to search through tens of millions of books, so I am pretty sure you will find what you need. Just remember, there is no such thing as enough knowledge.

Source List

The Survivor Library contains over 80 thousand books, papers, plans, and so on, all related to surviving, homesteading, or rebuilding a community after a collapse. They actually sell a full version on the site, but I just go through and cherry-pick. There are tons of good books to be had here. “The Library in it’s entirety is a compendium of the Technological and Industrial Knowledge of the 1800 through early 1900s.” Rebuilding indeed.

For my Reddit peeps, those of you who don’t know already, go check out the subreddit r/PrepperFileShare they are constantly posting links for various downloads and sources, way more than I could keep up with here. Check on it every now and then for new stuff.

Here is a link library index to a large collection of plans and books from the old PS Survival site. Massive amount of freely available downloads here. I think they are working on remaking this, and if they do, I will update the link.

PDF Drive is a website that lists over 75 million books for free download in PDF, MOBI, or EPUB formats. Going through this by subject and following related book links will suck up a huge amount of your time, but you can find almost everything here you can imagine. Just search by subjects like homesteading, survival, herbal medicine, whatever. It will bring up many books and consume your life and bandwidth if you let it.

Large PDF is another website like PDF drive, but this one mostly lists works of fiction and literature, for those of you who want to preserve the classics or just want to put together a few decades of entertainment for those Wasteland book club nights. Again, search by authors, subjects, or titles, and enjoy.

The Internet Archive has tons of books, videos, music, whatever, and while it can be a bit unwieldy in user interface, the results are voluminous.

City Prepping is a well-known YouTube prepping channel, and their site offers a small link library with some basic, but interesting books for free download.

A Few Random Things in Conclusion

Here are some selections from my own bookbank, mostly to do with very basic and essential knowledge, but these links should help give you a good idea of what to look for and how to get started. It is not really in any particular order, and certainly not comprehensive, but enjoy.

Ultimate Survival Skills Guide

Home Health Emergency Preparedness

How to Make Black Powder

Trapper Education Manual

Knots, A guide

Handbook of Knots and Splicing

A Book for Midwives

Survival and Austere Medicine

Emergency War Surgery

Military First-Aid Manual

The Complete Guide to Home Composting

Field Guide to Common Mushrooms