Donated Books and Disposal Ideas

Hello,

I would be willing to bet that all of you have people in your community who clean and cull their libraries from time to time. Now they have piles of books that they feel should be useful to someone and you are the recipient of these books. This is very common especially to our school libraries since so many people really want to help, but don’t realize that their books might not be what the school needs.

I have a mantra that I say to anyone who wants to donate books. I say, “I’d love to look through and see if there are any books that we need for our library. If there are any that won’t work for us, is it OK if I find somewhere else for them, or would you like them back?” They don’t usually want them back, so I am free to do what I want with them. I get rid of books by the following methods:

1. Look through and find books that the library can use and then process them for the library. If appropriate, put a bookplate inside the front cover to honor the person who donated the book or books.
2. Child-friendly books that would be duplicates for our library are put on a sale shelf. Cost for a book = 25 cents or less. Set your own price. Money goes into a library petty cash for incidentals. I have a couple of parents who regularly check this shelf at my school. Books that sit too long are ready for another method as listed below.
3. Send appropriate books to the church library if needed. If your church doesn’t have a church library, suggest they set one up.
4. Donate to the local library book sale.
5. Turn into a used book store for cash or credit to buy other books.
6. Check the internet to see if they are valuable enough to sell through an online book store. You can set up your own ‘bookstore’ through Amazon.com and sell your used books. This can be a tiny bit time consuming, but you might have a parent who will take this on for you.
7. Use the books for craft projects. Check out Pinterest for some great ideas. Make sure you tell students that the project is using books that aren’t good anymore – and be specific about what the problem was with the book. Missing pages, defaced pages, missing covers, etc. Otherwise, you might have young ones doing a project with a perfectly good book.
8. Find a dumpster.

I know I have mentioned this previously, but some of you are new to this and it can always be repeated. I would not discourage people from donating old books to your school, because someone will have some wonderful treasures for you one day. Be kind but you don’t have to keep books that you don’t need. Make sure the books on your shelves are ‘shelf-worthy’.

Have a great week!

Audrey

Currently reading:
The Gold Bat by P. G. Wodehouse
In a French Kitchen by Susan Herrmann Loomis
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
Watership Down by Richard Adams (Audible book)
The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by Kenji Lopez-Alt
The Gold Shoe by Grace Livingston Hill

(Yes, you probably can see a theme of sorts here. )