8 ms·

I hope you donate them instead of just throwing them in the bin

rtkwe 8y ago
The question is donate them to where. Thrift stores generally don't want them and 90% of library donations just wind up in the sell pile too before being tossed.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  Goodwill will take and re-sell books. Just don't give them textbooks.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    > Just don't give them textbooks. Is this true for libraries too? I was really bummed awhile back when I gave my local library some very good CS canon type textbooks and never saw them go on the shelves alongside the current crop of "Python for Dummies" type stuff. Is there any way to help them separate the wheat from the chaff when you donate?
    - rtkwe 8y ago
      Really I'd trust your local librarians to know what would actually be useful to your local community. Alternatively it could have been sent to another library in the county system.
      - sanderjd 8y ago
        Yeah, that was my assumption as well. But upon reflection, I fear they don't have the expertise to tell the difference between quickly-obsolete texts and those that are more timeless. It can be bewildering even with expertise in the field, so I don't begrudge them the difficulty. But maybe you're correct that they have a better knowledge of what is useful to the local community, and perhaps decided these were too academic and sent them to a university library instead. But personally, I think it's a bummer that a curious kid won't see SICP on the computing shelf, rather than five or six books on ColdFusion and the like.
- eropple 8y ago
  Better that than tossing them. The library could, almost certainly, use the money. I also Craigslist a lot of books when I'm done with them, or did before I moved more towards buying e-books.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    >The library could, almost certainly, use the money Ehhhh. Those books probably cost more to store than they make in profit. Books take up a lot of space and are likely selling for $1 (hardcover) or 10 for $1 (paperback) at the use book sale. Used books are really hard to sell, and there are a lot of them lying around. My wife had a collection of hundreds of paperbacks that the public library refused to take and Goodwill suggested we throw away, so we sent them to the recycling center.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  In my experience it's not usually too hard to find a second-hand bookstore that will take donations. That's what we do during our annual Culling of the Books.
  - alexhutcheson 8y ago
    I know for a fact that my local bookstore ends up pulping and recycling most donated books.
cm2012 8y ago
The top 33% we donate to thrift sales. Rest aren't worth the time and effort.
smolder 8y ago
My mother started and ran a book donation charity. A lot of what we received as donations just ended up going to recycling --outdated encyclopedias, romance novels, and so on. The work needed to sort out people's low quality donations actually ended up dominating the costs of running it, moreso than manning a "free books" table at a local grocery store. She tried just letting people sort through stuff themselves at first, but most people would decide after a short time searching through the free books that they were all crap and give up, defeating the purpose.

The question is donate them to where. Thrift stores generally don't want them and 90% of library donations just wind up in the sell pile too before being tossed.

jschwartzi 8y ago
Goodwill will take and re-sell books. Just don't give them textbooks.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  > Just don't give them textbooks. Is this true for libraries too? I was really bummed awhile back when I gave my local library some very good CS canon type textbooks and never saw them go on the shelves alongside the current crop of "Python for Dummies" type stuff. Is there any way to help them separate the wheat from the chaff when you donate?
  - rtkwe 8y ago
    Really I'd trust your local librarians to know what would actually be useful to your local community. Alternatively it could have been sent to another library in the county system.
    - sanderjd 8y ago
      Yeah, that was my assumption as well. But upon reflection, I fear they don't have the expertise to tell the difference between quickly-obsolete texts and those that are more timeless. It can be bewildering even with expertise in the field, so I don't begrudge them the difficulty. But maybe you're correct that they have a better knowledge of what is useful to the local community, and perhaps decided these were too academic and sent them to a university library instead. But personally, I think it's a bummer that a curious kid won't see SICP on the computing shelf, rather than five or six books on ColdFusion and the like.
eropple 8y ago
Better that than tossing them. The library could, almost certainly, use the money. I also Craigslist a lot of books when I'm done with them, or did before I moved more towards buying e-books.
- freehunter 8y ago
  >The library could, almost certainly, use the money Ehhhh. Those books probably cost more to store than they make in profit. Books take up a lot of space and are likely selling for $1 (hardcover) or 10 for $1 (paperback) at the use book sale. Used books are really hard to sell, and there are a lot of them lying around. My wife had a collection of hundreds of paperbacks that the public library refused to take and Goodwill suggested we throw away, so we sent them to the recycling center.
rootusrootus 8y ago
In my experience it's not usually too hard to find a second-hand bookstore that will take donations. That's what we do during our annual Culling of the Books.
- alexhutcheson 8y ago
  I know for a fact that my local bookstore ends up pulping and recycling most donated books.

cm2012 8y ago

The top 33% we donate to thrift sales. Rest aren't worth the time and effort.

smolder 8y ago

My mother started and ran a book donation charity. A lot of what we received as donations just ended up going to recycling --outdated encyclopedias, romance novels, and so on. The work needed to sort out people's low quality donations actually ended up dominating the costs of running it, moreso than manning a "free books" table at a local grocery store. She tried just letting people sort through stuff themselves at first, but most people would decide after a short time searching through the free books that they were all crap and give up, defeating the purpose.