A Moving Ordeal

Moving is always a pain. I know, I have moved many different times in the last 10 years, 6 times in the last ten year, and I am about to make it 7. Except this move, this move is the biggest, I am moving to Germany. To be exact, I am moving with my husband, life partner, partner with papers, partner in crime, whatever, and two cats to the city of Dresden. Some of you may remember Dresden from Kurt Vonnigeut's book Slaughterhouse 5, and that extraordinarily unfortunate event known as World War II. Today, Dresden has been mostly rebuilt, the people are much more hospitable towards people from the west, and one of the libraries there holds some very exciting manuscripts. Since this move will most likely be permanent, how does one do this? How does one move all of ones things over an ocean? We have 10 boxes, plus room for my bicycle, that will go from door to door, and then 1 checked luggage and our carry-ons for the plane. The carry-ons are already reserved for my modern bassoon and baroque bassoon, and the recorders that I will need right away will fit in my purse. So, that leave 10 boxes. 10 medium sized boxes. I think all of my music and scores and books about music would fill those 10 boxes. So I must downsize. This is how I am attempting it:

Going through all my music. Every single page. I am making five different piles:

1. Keep and pack. This is for actual purchased, complete, good editions of scores that I will use right off the bat. Music that I love, or will need.
2. Keep and store. This is for music that is either a good edition but I won't need immediately, music that is important to have but it isn't a good edition,  sentimental scores, or some of the more obscure etude books that I might need for students at some point, but not likely right away.
3. Scan and attempt to sell. This is music that is either a poor edition of something that I don't really need, duplicate copies of music, etude books so obsure it is unlikely that I will ever need it. Stuff that I am almost 100% sure I won't need, but am making a copy just in case. The scans will go onto an external hardrive which will be in my cary-on purse.
4. Scan an toss. Photocopies. I have tried to purchase as many things as I could, but when I was a student, this just wasn't possible. So I made a lot of photocopies. Additionally a lot of the transcriptions of early music are on photocopies. So these, as much as I would like to keep, will go onto that little hardrive.
5. Toss. Duplicate copies of music. Copies of music I am 100% sure I will never need. Incomplete photocopies.

Then the next step, is scan, scan, scan... This is talking multiple trips to the library, which has an amazing scanner that sends everything to my inbox. Then I open up the pdf's, label them properly so that I can find them with ease.

I am hoping with this method, that I might be able to ship one box of music and keep two boxes of music somewhere in the US. Wish me luck.  Of course this is not including music books, and scores which I am not sure what to do with yet...