I have to use the space on my bookshelves for other stuff. I’ve got a lovely set of 1972 World Books. I know what dinosaurs they’ve become, but maybe I’m overlooking something. I just hate to throw them away. I’ve never thrown out a book. Who might I offer them to? I want to give them to someone who could use them. I’ve tried the school I used to work at. Nada. Is this an item that has no appreciable use anymore? I presume they cost several hundred dollars originally. Now, nothing. So where can they go? Any suggestions?
Craigslist? Goodwill?
Goodwill. Nobody else is going to want them, possibly including Goodwill.
ETA - the only old encyclopedia set anybody’s interested in is the 1911 Britannica.
Goodwill probably won’t want them. Someone might though. I’d try craigslist or freecycle.
Try the local library for a friends of the library sale, or, a local university library may have a fotl thing also.
Good luck,
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My parents had the same issue when they moved recently. I think they ended up recycling them. Might find a home with someone who just wants to fill space on a bookshelf with “nice” looking books. I know that’s what they were used for by my parents for the last 20 or so years they had them…
home school family might want, i would guess that if they would be online they would likely go to craigslist
Since the OP is seeking advice, this is better suited for IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Recycle center. Somethings just outlive their useful life.
God, I hope not. Please let homeschoolers be teaching out of current materials.
You could try some children’s charities in your location. Where are you? IME the grittier/more poverty-stricken an area is, the less picky they are about donations. It’s possible some org. that provides after-school tutoring or something along those lines might want 'em.
Then again, the information in them is THREE DECADES out of date. I know some things don’t change (gravity was the same 30 years ago) but lots of things do, and the Internet has made obsolete books even more obsolete. It’s just too easy to access up-to-date info.
Another vote for freecycle.
They can prop up table legs, or make passably good fireplace kindling. That’s about it.
Which binding is it, the black-and-brown or white-and-brown?[sup]*[/sup]
I once bought a 20-volume set of encyclopedias, brand new, for $2. It was one of those things in the grocery store where there’d be a new volume every week; the first was 9 cents, and then the rest were more expensive. So I bought 20 copies of volume 1. It was supposed to be a dorm-warming present for a friend who had just gone to college, but then he never had a dorm-warming party.
- I only know this because we had the same encyclopedia when I was a kid (or it might have been '73), and I’m pretty sure my mother still does. I can find out if any of them are worn out and need replacing.
I know of a ship that travels the world and takes educational supplies to some places that are way off the beaten path, they might be champing at the bit for something like this. Only problem is, I think they just left this morning.
Their next mail stop is in Panama. I don’t know how much it would cost to ship the books there, but I can put you in touch with them if you like.
Almost four decades. Put it this way - when I was a kid in the 80’s, encyclopedias this old would have been published in the 40’s.
I recently wanted to get rid of a complete set of the Encylopedia Britannica from the 90s with updated yearbooks through almost 2000. It was a beautiful set with special binding and silver film page edging. No one, repeat no one, wanted it. Called Goodwill, Salvation Army, local charities, schools, libraries. One school even asked for the year. When I said 1990 they said no thanks since they had a more recent set already. Most will just say no, period. Sadly I finally had to just toss all the volumes in a dumpster.
I have a 1958 World Book set, which I actually read from cover to cover, rather than all the silly things other teenage boys were doing.
The Friends of the Library may well reject it. Do you know how many ancient World Book sets are floating around? A new edition is published every year.
Homeschoolers don’t want it, I promise. I’m a homeschooler. I already own a 1989 Britannica and consider it too out of date to be useful in many areas. I don’t know anyone who would want such a thing.
The main use for old World Books is to use them as building material for fun DIY projects. You can turn them into bookshelves or carve up the pages, but I promise, really and truly, that no one wants a 1972 World Book set.
I know we tend to consider books as sacred and never to be thrown out. But–as a homeschooling librarian bibliophile I’m going to tell you–books aren’t inherently sacred and a lot of them are just trash.
Quoted for truth.
Think of it this way: You wouldn’t feel bad recycling old phone books, would you? A lot of the information in a set of World Books is almost as ephemeral as what’s in phone books. Some of that info is potentially a force for evil (I’m exaggerating slightly, but bear with me) unlike those old phone books – an unquestioning or uneducated reader might not realize which information is likely to be outdated, and depend on a wrong no-longer-a-fact to their peril.
That said, echoing a post above, if you just can’t bring yourself to dump them with a recycler, try thinking of them as crafting material. If you don’t do that sort of thing yourself, try offering them in that way on Craigslist.
Ranganathan’s Five Laws of Library Science:
Books are for use
Every reader his book
Every book its reader
Save the time of the reader
The library is a growing organism
Bolding mine. (The fifth is relevant as well.)