What are "professional books"?

[randian]

11 USC 522(d)(6) exempts "tools of the trade", including "professional books". Are these regular books you can get at a Barnes & Noble or Borders (anything in the Real Estate section for real estate investors & realtors, anything in the computer section for software engineers, etc) or does this specifically refer to professional licensure ("bar exam" books for lawyers, that sort of thing)?

[frogger]

If you buy it at Barnes & Noble, it probably is not considered a "professional" book. What you are looking at with professional books are things such as law journals, medical books, etc. Keep in mind however, that used books are pretty much worthless.

[WhatMoney]

11 USC 522(d)(6) exempts "tools of the trade", including "professional books". Are these regular books you can get at a Barnes & Noble or Borders (anything in the Real Estate section for real estate investors & realtors, anything in the computer section for software engineers, etc) or does this specifically refer to professional licensure ("bar exam" books for lawyers, that sort of thing)?

A professional book is any book you might use in your trade or profession. The popular bookstores stock some "professional" books. They are usually hard cover, sell for over $100, and do not have 'Dummies' in the title.

And if you are just a hobby doctor, then your expensive medical books would not be professional either, while a cheap paperback book on real estate law could be professional if you are a licensed broker.

The resale value of so-called professional books is usually 10-20% of their retail cost, if you tried to sell them on the Internet or to a used book store. A rare exception is an older technical book that sold for $30 in 1970, and today the same edition sells for $300. A dealer would try to sell the book at $150 and maybe give you $20 on a good day. That happened to me when I sold some of my obscure graduate level engineering books.

[randian]

Sounds like my books wouldn't qualify as "professional". No, they aren't "Dummies" books. Still, books can be exempted under 522(d)(3) rather than 522(d)(6), so I'll go for that instead.

[drowning123]

Look at it this way. If you wouldn't have bought the book otherwise, then it's a professional book, even if it's bought at Barnes and Noble.