Like many Apartment Therapy readers, I love books. I find myself clicking on book-themed posts, drooling over stylish libraries, and stocking up on design classics. But library card or not, for many book lovers, eventually the piles add up and it's time to donate a few.
I know many people want to donate books or have a pile set aside, but aren't sure where to begin. Even if you're hoping to sell your used books, you might find yourself with a stack the store didn't want. Of course, any books you hope to donate need to be in good condition — no one wants to read a musty, moldy book or one with missing pages. You should also call ahead to check the type of books accepted and to make sure their needs match what you hope to donate.
Here are 12 places to consider when your book collection gets unwieldy:
General Locations
Homeless Shelters: Local homeless shelters are often in need of donated books. Women's shelters especially need children's books.
Prisons: Prisons often seek books for literacy programs and for the prison library.
Libraries: Libraries across the country are in need of gently used books. Many make it easy to donate by holding frequent book drives. For example,
Friends of the San Francisco Public Library's well-organized program helps them reuse 600,000 books a year.
Goodwill/Salvation Army/Thrift Stores: Check to see what your local Goodwill accepts and then bring the books along with other home goods you're donating.
City-Specific Locations
Boston: The for-profit book reuse organization Got Books? sends books to troops and teachers, and also helps raise money for local nonprofits.
Chicago: Open Books, whose wonderful, well-stocked bookstore benefits their award-winning nonprofit literacy programs.
Los Angeles: Books for People gathers books to benefit charities for local homeless children and to raise funds for local libraries.
New York: Three times a week, the volunteers at NYC's Books Through Bars matches book donations to the requests sent in from prisoners across the country.
San Francisco: Project Night-Night collects children's books to put in care packages for homeless youth from birth to pre-teen.
Washington DC: Books for America collects books to benefit locations around the city, including schools, shelters, and prisons.
Nationwide & International Donations
Books for Soldiers: You need to register for the site, but once you do, you can help out the troops by sending soldiers specific books they hope to read, which they can request through the website.
Book4Cause: Many of the donations from Book4Causes' drives and donation campaigns go to Africa to support the Good Books for Africa program.
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In addition to some of the donation options listed above, I have thinned out my books using Freecycle, dropping them at local coffee shops that have bookshelves for sharing, and selling them on Amazon. I also tried bookcrossing.com, which is a free trading site, but it didn't work out very well for me. (People kept contacting me and asking me to mail a book to some part of Asia.)
Very timely, since I'm getting rid of most of my library, thanks!
The Book Thing is a fantastic resource in Baltimore. They are a free bookstore that accepts books and magazines.
http://www.bookthing.org/
All the soldiers I know are so incredibly grateful for any books that aren't romances or westerns, since this seems to make up a large portion of what they get.
These are some wonderful suggestions I haven't heard of, thank you!
i've been in publishing for quite a while. it was my understanding, from actual inmates, that prisons only accept books posted from the publisher.
I was just going through some old books this weekend trying to figure out what to do with them. I usually just give them to GoodWill, but Books for America sounds like a great place to take them too! Thanks for the suggestions!
I just found out about a site called Book Mooch. I don't have a lot of experience with it, but basically you list books that you want to give away and people "buy" them with points. You earn points by sending books out to people (and you get more points for sending internationally). It seems like a good choice for books that wouldn't sell well on Amazon, and you can turn them into books that you actually want!
You beat me to it, Cheryl K. The Book Thing is the absolute best thing about Baltimore. I have a massive collection of outdated medical texts I scored from them.
Thank you for posting this, Kathleen. There are so many in need of books. It's a shame that so many hoard them ad decorative objects or a proof of their intellectual acumen. I especially encourage folk to donate to their local charity thrift stores where those books are not only appreciated but the proceeds go on the save and change lives.
If you want to host your own bookdrive, check out Better World Books. You get $$ for each book you collect and can put it toward your business or organization.
If you donate them to your library, mark them as donations, rather than just slipping them into the returns chute. Most libraries have a lost property policy which will mean they have to hold on to them and store them for some time before they can be considered for the collection.
Check with your library first. most libraries I've been associated with are overrun with books and are actually quite selective about the cast offs they accept. In many cases the books just end up in the book drive or discarded. It's very frustrating for librarians and the workers, but they aren't really equipped to serve as the community's dumping bin for unwanted books.
Seconding Girl & Lamp (and delurking!). I'm a public library collection manager, so this is something I can speak to... if you're really concerned about getting your stuff actually on library shelves (which some people are), consider talking to a smaller rural library in a nearby town. About half of my workplace's collection comes from donations, while the big urban library in the nearest city sends EVERYTHING to their Friends bookstore - which is great if all you care about is your donation making a little money for the library, but those donations will never see actual library shelves.
Also, if you're letting go of very specialized books, consider a special library. A high school with a culinary magnet/vocational program may love high-quality cookbooks, or a small private art museum with a research library might be a good match for art books.
The other organizations that Kathleen mentions are all fantastic! Some hospitals also maintain libraries as part of their recreation departments.
Always ask. If an institution isn't a good match for what you have to offer, they can often suggest someone who is.
As a regular AT reader I was presently surprised to stumble across this post during my regular browsing. As an employee of Open Books it is always exciting to see our information posted for book donations. I just wanted to add for those in Chicago, Open Books is now taking all books, if it is a book we will take it. We try to find homes for everything that comes in, whether it is in our store or if it is given away in grants. If you are in the area and do have damaged books we will also make sure those items are properly recycled instead of being tossed into the garbage.
-Dustin
Open-Books.org
What about www.BetterWorldBooks.com? They will pay for the cost to ship books to their warehouse near Chicago and they have collection bins all over Georgia and Indiana. They have donated nearly $12 million to literacy causes from the books they have collected so far!
Paperbookswap.com
I found out the hard way that prisons are very particular about subject matter. If I were in jail, I would appreciate some pulp fiction and cookbooks, but they only wanted to take bibles and books about Malcolm X. So... I guess I will try a small town library.