How do you get rid of books?

[dreamshark]

I have a box of books that don't fit anywhere and I certainly don't care to keep them, but Id rather not toss them in the garbage. Some are F&SF, but most are not. They range from random paperbacks to old dictionaries to 80's pop culture books to How to Repair a Refrigerator.

What should I do with them?

Comments

[carbonel]

Freecycle? Savers? Goodwill?

[guppiecat]

Drop them on a freebie table at Convergence.

Then it magically becomes someone else's problem.

Have someone else throw them away for you!

[mle292.livejournal.com]

The biggest problem with donating books is that there are so very many of them, and the people who want and value used books want very specific types of books.

guppiecat is correct about the value of a convention freebie table. I once unloaded about 75 VHS tapes that way. I'm dubious about the attractiveness of the non-SF books, but there are enough book hoarders in fandom that they'll probably go at any convention.

Here are a few other options if you don't want to wait until the next convention.

1. Donate the box to Goodwill. They may cull for the most desirable and toss the rest in the dumpster, but they won't tell you about the destruction, and not knowing is half the battle.

2. http://www.booksforafrica.org/events.html - I've heard that organizations like this mostly want English textbooks and easy readers, and they must prioritize shipping space for the most needed books, and probably get rid of the rest. I strongly suspect that these events accept books in exchange for listening to a fundraising pitch.

3. Dreamhaven will give you money or store credit for the SF books he thinks he can resell, but you must not leave the books he doesn't want. You must make an appointment to do this, so don't waste anyone's time if you don't think any of them are valuable.

4. Half Price Books will give you money or store credit, and probably less than Dreamhaven, but they'll take the books they don't want and make them magically disappear. I try not to think about the magic process.

Re: Have someone else throw them away for you!

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Hey! It looks like "Books For Africa" would really appreciate the dictionaries.

http://www.booksforafrica.org/books-computers/donate-books.html

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Surely some of the Mpls area libraries have 'Friends of the Library' booksales which sell donated books to benefit the library. Ask Denny -- he knows.

[pameladean]

Give them to a Little Free Library. There's one in the 3700 block of Pillsbury Avenue, on the eastern side of the street; and another on my block, closer to 38th than not, on the western side of the street. (In case you haven't seen them, those are the little wooden boxes on posts, with see-through doors and books in them, that have been popping up all over for the last few years.

P.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, right. There is one across the street from us, in fact. It is generally pretty full. I managed to jam two of the smaller books into it. It would take me a year to get rid of a large box of books that way.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

Well, there's several in our neighborhood, and they're generally not jam-packed with books. I think there's one at the Whittier School, and another at Whittier Park. And mizzlaurajean's Uncle has one in his back yard (somewhere just north of Minnehaha Parkway on Lyndale).

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Somehow, driving around the streets stuffing one or two books at a time into every Little Free Library in the city doesn't appeal to me. But if you have LFLs in your neighborhood that aren't getting enough use, I encourage you (and all the other book-hoarding fans I know) to start using them.

I have been slipping books into the one on my block since it opened up. I have never been remotely tempted to take a book, however. Since the sign says "Take a book, leave a book" this makes me feel slightly guilty.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

Women's Prison Book Project http://www.wpbp.org/
They send books to women in prison, and the books they can't use for that they sell to raise money for the postage to do mailing.They say they need dictionaries also. You can drop books off at: Boneshaker Books, 2002 23rd Ave S.Minneapolis, MN 55404

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

That's the best suggestion yet. Yeah, I can dump them at a thrift store, but I'm sure the vast majority of used books dumped at thrift stores get thrown away eventually.

Maybe I'll cull out a box of books that I can imagine women in prison might enjoy. (I'm pretty sure they don't need the one on designing water features for the yard, for instance).

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Hey, you never know, someone in prison might enjoy reading about designing water features. Some prisons even have programs allowing inmates to garden.

Also, since WPBP will sell any books that they don't send to the prison, you might as well send them the whole box and let them decide which to do what with. Except for any investment books from the '80s -- save those for kindling.

[davidschroth.livejournal.com]

My recollection is that there are restrictions on what the Women's Prison Book Project will accept (only paperback, or only hardcover - I can't remember which option applied).

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

They'll accept any book. Most prisons have restrictions and will only take paperbacks, which means they sell the hardcovers at book sales.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I donated books and shelves to them when I moved out of my place in St Paul - they were very grateful and even came to pick up my donation.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

If you donate them to Salvation Army, they become tax-deductible contributions to charity, and the allowable deduction is almost certainly more than you'd get trying to sell them.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to make money off them. I'm trying to get them out of my house.
Ideally I'd like some reasonable number of them to go someplace where they might get read. If I can't think of anything better, sure, I'll dump them at a thrift store. I just think most thrift stores get more used books than they know what to do with.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

*shrug* Okay.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

There's a company that collects books and they have a green receiving bin behind the Rainbow in Richfield. It's a big green box. You can put them in there. Alas, I didn't retain the name of the company, so cannot give info on what one might expect them to do with the books. But there wouldn't be shipping charges.

K.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Is it a legit bin? Most of those clothing bins are scams run by for-profit agencies.

If som

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't much care. My primary goal is to get the damn books out of the house. Secondarily, I would prefer to give the books to someone who might read them. If they don't read them but just grind them up and sell them for paper pulp that is preferable to dumping them in a landfill or forcing the city to pay for recycling them. If somebody has found a way to make a profit from reselling my old books, more power to them.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

For all I know, the bin Minnehaha K is referring to is legit. The scam bins I've seen are mostly for clothes and shoes. But if it's not legit, do you honestly think scammers are likely to do anything but chuck unwanted books in a dumpster for landfill?

I still suggest asking Denny if he knows of a Friends of the Library group who are accepting books. Maybe he would even drop them off since he regularly makes rounds of library book sales. I just checked the Hennepin County Friends site which say they aren't accepting books right now, but there might be others.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I assume that if the book donation boxes are operated by people looking to make a profit they will dispose of the books in whatever way makes them the most money. At worst, they'll be recycled for the paper. At best, some of them will be sold as books and the ones no one wants will be recycled. I doubt there is money to be made by just dumping them in a landfill.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards selling (or donating) the sff books to Dreamhaven or Uncle Hugo's and donating the rest to the organization Magenta suggested. I love the idea of providing books to women in prison, and if the organization has some way to make money off the ones they don't want it seems like a reasonable organization to donate to.

I don't think I have even seen Denny for years. Do you have an email for him?

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

I looked up library donations online, and it appears that Hennepin County Library does take old books. However, no information on where and how to donate. It just says to call your local branch to ask if they take donations or not. Maybe I'll try that if the other options fall through.

[carbonel]

That particular bin -- I go to that Rainbow -- says right on it that it's a for-profit business that donates some of its proceeds to charity. Savers is pretty much the same -- it's a for-profit business (I believe), but its prices are low enough for me not to quibble.

The point isn't that the donations are going to charity -- it's that they're being recycled in a way that will actually be useful.

That said, now that there's a Goodwill in my neighborhood, that's a more palatable solution for me.

[quadong.livejournal.com]

Since having children, I have slightly reconsidered my stance that all books are totally sacred and cannot be thrown away. I now think that some books are the moral equivalent of magazines, in that they are intended to relevant for only a short period of time, after which they are discardable. I only apply this rule to paperback non-fiction. More relevantly to the children, if a book is sufficiently abused, and it's not a masterpiece or anything, I think it's ok to euthanize it.

There! I bet you can use those rules to get rid of either zero or one book! (Since you've gotten plenty of suggestions for what to do with the rest already.)