Another factor to consider in the price of a physical book is space. The median home price is roughly $200,000 and the median home size is just above 2000 square feet. This gives a cost of ~ $100 per sq. ft.
I just measured some books I had and 10 books per foot by 4 shelves high yields a minimum cost of $2.50 per book to store. This does not factor in moving costs of the lifetime of the book nor energy costs to heat/cool the books.
Actually, books should lower the cost of heating/cooling a house. They'll act to keep the temperature level in the house at a static level, though they would cost more if you often cycled your house between warm and cold.
It's like keeping jugs of water in the refrigerator: the system works by cooling the air, which falls out when you open the door. The space taken up by the water means there's less air to fall out.
In any case, your analysis of square footage is clever, I hadn't thought to consider that cost.
The California Handbook for Solar Energy is the only government publication we have been able to find which takes into account the thermal mass of the concrete when measuring heat loss. Simply stated, the concrete acts as a heat sink which slows the passage of heat back and forth through the wall or roof assembly.
This shouldn't be over looked. My wife and I have moved twice and both times we had to cull our "library" in an attempt to save space and weight.
Figuring an average moving cost of 60 cents per pound and 1 pound per book, moving costs for books can add up very quickly. And forget about it if your moving across an ocean. With e-books this cost is negligible.
I remember reading a book about de-cluttering once and the author made a really interesting point. She said "if 20% of your apartment or house is clutter, you're paying 20% of your rent or mortgage towards storing it."
I could argue that some of my books are definitely not clutter even though I don't physically open them very often. Sentimental value or 'I paid $40 for it' maybe.
This assumes that I don't enjoy the physical objects themselves and being able to wander around and pick a book off a shelf. I do. I'm willing to pay for the pleasure.
Dividing medians by medians is not safe; you get weird interactions between differences by region and differences within each region. (Houses in Manhattan are smaller than houses in Cheyenne, and also cost more, because the cost per square foot is higher; but in both Cheyenne and Manhattan, bigger houses cost more. Except when you get into the ghetto/non-ghetto distinction, etc.)
Also I don't think the medians you cite are anywhere close to correct. Maybe they're correct as medians only within the US? I remind you that the US is less than 5% of the population.
Otherwise your figures look good to me.
Maybe the right answer here is to pay attention to your current region. I'm paying about US$350 per month (before taxes) for 60m², about 600ft². For me 40 books per square foot means each book costs about ⅝¢ per month to store. I think that's about US$0.68.
Considering most people mortgage their home over 30 years, it is not unfair to use this fact and build onto your math a bit:
2.50 / 30 years = about 8.33 cents per year in 'storage rent'.
Seems pretty cheap to me, when you compare relative costs of storage.
Of course, I'm typing this with some sarcasm, because the whole metric is bad. Your analysis assumes that: A - somehow you have unlimited items to store in all the empty places in your house, B - ignores the absolute cost of having empty space (you've already spent on the house, but if you leave that space empty, you have opportunity cost becuase you COULD be storing books), and C - ignores any utilitarian value you get from having the books around. :)
Here's a hint: C is most important. And it references back to the point the article is trying to make.
Pre-crash, median home price is about $240K (not sure if it has fallen and by how much). Median condo price was actually higher (~$250K) because condos were generally only in more expensive metros.
Are you kidding?! $200k in Boston would be a freaking steal. People would almost literally kill for that. I'm in cambridge and all the 2 bedroom condos on the blocks around me are $450k and up. And that's a CONDO with shared walls.
I just measured some books I had and 10 books per foot by 4 shelves high yields a minimum cost of $2.50 per book to store. This does not factor in moving costs of the lifetime of the book nor energy costs to heat/cool the books.
It is surprisingly expensive to keep 'stuff'.