Long story short - husband is doing his community service (long story - won’t make it short - won’t tell it at all) at a library, and he brings me boxes and boxes of books - daily. They have a public drop off, and one of his tasks is to go through these, rip off the covers, then dump them for recycling.
Some of the finds he has brought home:
1931 Rand McNally Atlas - full color - perfect condition.
1920’s cookbooks - all in excellent condition.
Some books published in the 1800’s (there are two cases of them - I can’t remember what they were - they were “classic” type stuff) - all the really really nice and old ones we’re saving - one day we’ll take them to an appraiser to see if they’re worth anything. When people die (for instance), you’d be surprised how many family members just pack up the books (without regard for their worth or quality or anything) and dump them at the Library.
We’ve also managed to get three full sets of World Book - we’re getting rid of a lot of this stuff at the neighborhood garage sale - we’re telling them it’s Free - and they can give a donation if they want. There are plenty of poorer kids in the area that could USE a set of encylopedias.
Plus, I think I may have the complete works of Danielle Steele by now.
Seriously - libraries don’t want your used books. They just don’t. Not around here anyway.
That’s true here, too. I’m going to start putting books out on the curbside. Around here, you can get rid of anything that way.
I heard this guy on the radio and he was complaining that the library didn’t want to BUY his books from him. He didn’t say anything about giving them away to anyone in the whole interview, just selling them.
Meh. I’ve been in enough used bookstores to know that they eventually amass a whole bunch of unsaleable crap. Many books do have a limited lifespan. For every classic book you might find, there’re 13 copies of “Windows 95, the new generation of computing”, old editions of textbooks, or fifty year old electronics manuals. There’s a reason a lot of books end up in used book stores, and only one of them is that the previous owner ran out of shelf space. A 1931 atlas might be a interesting as a curiosity, but it’s worthless as a reference book.
I’m not a big fan of burning or tossing books, but there’s nothing sacred about them. (I tossed out my copy of “Hannibal” to save anyone else the wasted time of reading it.)
I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe in “bookworship” - the idea that books are some sort of sacrosanct item that can only be given away, never thrown out, never (horrors!) burned.
I’ve given away hundreds of books, and failed to find homes for hundreds - maybe even thousands - of others. They’ve gone straight to the recycling bins. I’ve even burned a few: I once found boxes of hateful, racist, shit-spewing books at my local recycling station’s “swap shop” and took them specifically to destroy them before they could spread their poison any further.
But even the benign stuff…not all of it is worth anything more than a curious nod.
What good is a 1931 atlas, other than to look at the pretty colors, or for a bit of a nostalgia kick? The information there is completely out of date. You could probably turn a few bucks off of it by razoring out selected pages and putting them up on eBay, but other than that?
The cookbooks from the 20’s are interesting in their own way, but most people (perhaps not you, Missy) would be hard-pressed to adapt the recipes for today’s tastes. Most of them call for things like lard and bacon fat and soured milk that a lot of cooks find “distateful” and not a lot of people remember the conversion ratios for using vegetable shortening or oil instead (as an example.)
Are the books from the 1800’s worthy of saving just because they’re a century old? Much of the writing from that era is dreadful and the books are practically unreadable today - authors like Dickenson, Hawthorne, Poe, etc. from that era are still read today because they were exceptional, not because they were representative of their peers.
I’m well aware that this opinion sets me in the minority here, but I guess I just don’t share the outrage at some guy disposing of his own property in any way he sees fit, even if that property is books.
It is an amazing, authoritative, and genuine reference book on geographic and cultural data for a nation on the verge of emerging into superpower status. History is just as important as any other academic discipline, and it is only by access to original sources that we can reliably obstruct historical revisionism.
But, for the local public library, which is fighting hard to find space for computers, shelf space for Videos(probably not still buying videos, but not tossing existing, circulating videos which still function), DVDs, Magazines, Books, CDs–music, Audio Books (Tape and CD–may only buy CD) . . .
Schools in Africa and Asia would kill (y’know if they weren’t dying of hunger) for these books.
He should have just donated them to any worthy organization.
Damn, I’d kick in for the shipping, happily.
Aren’t there any aid organizations for new immigrants in Amerika? Damn, those people would love these books.
I have a simple theory, it goes a little like this;
“Burn books - go directly to hell for all eternity!”
I have twice had contributions turned away. Not out of date stuff either; college textbooks, theology, some reference,and a few Chinese-English dual translation novels.
In our area, most donated books are sold by “Friends of the Library” and the funds are donated to the library. I see this as a win-win process. Lots of people get incredibly cheap books and the library gets a little more cash.
When I don’t want to donate a book unless it’s going to be put on the shelves, I contact the library’s aquisitions person and run the title by her. If she’s interested, I deliver it specifically to her instead of dropping it into a return slot.
If you’re a fan of a genre or a specific author and you know your library, you can fill in gaps in their collection.
Al of the used book stores around here have free bins where anyone can place or pick up discards. They move briskly. The local women’s center and psychiatric facility always welcome books. This guy didn’t try very hard.
I’m a librarian, though I’ve never worked in a public library: most of my career has been in academic libraries, but they get lots of unwanted book donations too.
Book donations are a cost to libraries: they cost staff time to sort through, and more staff time to process if they are added to the collection. If they are added to the collection, they cost shelf space – yes, space costs money, because you not only have to buy the shelves, but you have to buy the building they sit inside, and pay continuing maintenance costs on the space.
So some donations are welcome, because they are useful additions to the collection, but I’m afraid that most are not, so (if possible) they are given to the Friends of the Library to sell and raise a little money on. If that’s not possible, or the Friends find they are unsellable, then they get recycled. Not every copy of every book needs to be preserved for ever.
To be fair, some merchandise simply will not move. Have you tried selling VHS movies online lately? Unless it’s something very rare, I can’t even give these things away anymore. Secondhand shops won’t buy them from me either. I’ve had to throw out more than 100 perfectly good movies on VHS in the last year because no one wanted them and I was sick of the clutter.
This guy doesn’t have a few dozen books. He has 20,000. I don’t know of any organization equipped to take on that type of donation. They wouldn’t have the staff to sort them or the room to house them. Those of you suggesting he donate to women’s shelters or hospitals and the like, how do you propose he do it? Those places probably don’t want more than 50 or so books, and many of his books would be useless to them. Does he really have a moral obligation to sort through those books and donate them a few at a time to multiple organizations?
I don’t like the idea of burning books either. It’s sad and it’s a waste. Recycling is certainly better, and the statement he is trying to make is ridiculous. I’d like to see the books saved, but I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be overly burdensome to the owner. I agree with all in theory, but practically I can’t fault him for anything more than burning rather than recycling.
Ours sells a fraction of what is donated (even at 25 cents each) and takes as many of the rest as possible to the Five Colleges book sale. But they have a limit of how many boxes can be dropped off. That still leaves many boxfuls to be discarded.
