Disposing of books

I am in the process of decluttering/downsizing for an eventual retirement move.

I have a fair amount of books I wish to not pay to move.

My initial thought was donate them all to the library. But a lot of the books I don’t think they would want.

So I got some pop fiction like Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum. Vonnegut, Asimov, Updike type books. Collected works of Shakespeare, Jack London, Mark Twain type stuff. Some of it is cheap Crown Books type hardcovers.

A lot of biographies of historical figures.

And a lot of non fiction I doubt anyone would want.

Is it worth taking to the library to see if they want any of it? or just throw it all in the trash? Selling to a used book store seems like they might give a quarter for 1 out 5 books.

I have a joke answer, but it might be considered too political.

I’m not easily offended.

Try Little Free Libraries if you have any in your area. If nothing else, maybe auction them off in one lot or in several.

Check with Goodwill, some take books and some don’t.

Some public libraries take books and put them on a resale table for $1-2, making a bit of change for the library. Call first, to save yourself a trip. But as other threads and my own experience suggest, “getting rid” of books is a lot harder than one might expect.

My mother checked with the town transfer station and based on what she was told, she’s been disposing a few of my father’s books (obsolete legal textbooks) each week in the recycling bin.

Here in England, charity shops are keen to have free books, e.g. the hospice charity LOROS:

LOROS shops

So what if you only get a quarter a book? That’s more than you’d get by tossing them in the trash.

I had to downsize my books (and videos/CDs) a few years ago. My first stop was the used book store. I was happy to take the pittance they offered because, obviously, I didn’t want the books anymore so anything I’d get for them was great, even if only bought me a cheap lunch.

Next was the library. Drop 'em off and let them worry about them. I can imagine they all find new homes, even if I know some of them wound up in the recycle bin they have out back. Some others wound up in the bookstore and maybe raised a few pennies for the library and at least two wound up on the shelves because I saw them there later (and they still had my “from the library of” mark on the inside cover, so yes, they were my donations).

I know the reality of the situation, but this whole scenario makes me sad. Imagine, you can’t even give away the likes of Shakespeare. I get this feeling when I see a novel by some unknown going for ten cents at a yard sale, knowing that some poor bastard likely poured their soul into making that novel happen.

And you say you have historical biographies. Wish there were a way I could take them off your hands.

But I, too, have a big stack of books that are off to the local library once they start accepting donations again.

mmm

Is this any use to OP:

https://www.inthebook.com/en-us/book-donation-map/

This was discussed in this thread:

Our local library has a big bin for donations. You can also browse through these “donations” and make purchases for $1/$2 a book. Twice a year they have a big sale - adding whats in the donation box to whatever other donations (and what was left over from the last sale) they have received. I would never throw out a book.

If you don’t feel comfortable deciding which books to throw out, take your stacks to a used bookstore. They don’t pay much, but that doesn’t matter, you’re just trying to dispose of your collection responsibly, right? They’ll divide it into “sell” and “landfill” stacks, and you can accept or reject their advice.

Failing that, there are probably book drops in your town, maybe secondhand stores that will do this process for you.

I have also used the library as a book drop for one or two books, here and there. I’m not sure if this is any kind of burden to them, but I imagine the sorting and disposal process is like what the used bookstores do. Interesting and new (to me) fact, but they generally don’t put donations into circulation because that’s all handled by a central circulation committee.

It’s OK to throw away books. In fact it’s good to throw away books. There have been so many books printed in the history of printing that if librarians didn’t routinely discard them, there wouldn’t be any usable libraries. Go ahead, shitcan that copy of Visual Basic 5, you have my permission.

Our library USED to have a drop off donation bin, where the books were eventually sorted out for their yearly book sale. Because of COVID, no library is accepting books, nor will there be a yearly book sale for the foreseeable future…I am stuck with hundreds of books to get rid of. My husband had OCD and collected books by the dozen. Mostly non-fiction about WWII airplanes. Lots of best sellers. I’ve given away many of mine (cookbooks mostly) but these dogs? The whole world is inundated with Stephen King and Tom Clancy…So I am throwing them out ever week. I tear off the covers and throw those in the trash, and the pages go in the recycling bin.

Yes, we have to tear the covers off first and throw them in the trash. The pages can go in the recycling bin. I get rid of a shopping bag full every week.

The first time she did it, the arm on the truck started to pick up the recycling bin but then stopped and put it back down. The operator got out of the truck, went round and looked inside, presumably to see what was so heavy.

They also had (or have) a large collection of vinyl, which is also not really wanted and hard to get rid of. Also extremely heavy. The good thing is that my mother is working on clearing out the house.

I was going to suggest this as well. We have several just within a couple blocks of our house.

Do you have any used book stores in town?

Do you commute? Just leave a book on the bus or train each day. Somebody will pick them up

Seems to me I’d just sort it into two categories- things people might actually want, and crap that nobody wants. Donate the first, or take it to the used bookstore, and trash/recycle the second.

There’s nothing sacred or holy about books that warrants foisting off a bunch of old outdated junk like a set of old encyclopedias from the 1970s on a used bookstore or charity; they’re just going to trash them anyway. Same for stuff like outdated technological manuals (“Computers for Dummies” from 1989, for example). So just throw that stuff in the recycling and be done with it.

Nobody is refusing Shakespeare. He’s more accessible than ever in history, available at peoples’ fingertips 24/7. And that’s with the modern assignment of ownership, not the obsolete “complete” plays.

It’s all those damn old print editions of Shakespeare. There may have been two billion volumes of Shakespeare printed over the centuries. What do we lose if a billion of them vanish, besides tens of trillions of dust mites and lots of allergy symptoms.