UK Home for books needed

As a Library employee, let me talk a little about this. I know I am in the US, but the things I will say I am pretty sure apply to most libraries.

I know your heart is in the right place with wanting to donate your collection. But keep these things in mind.

Look at the collection. Most Libraries can only add a book if it is in almost new condition. Are the covers not bent or torn? Are the pages not getting yellow or brown from age? Are there any spots on the top of the book? Basically - do they look almost new?

Donations are not free to a Library. We have to cover them (which costs a buck or two per book) put a barcode on them (which is $1.00 in my system.) Then, stamp, label, and add to the catalog, which costs money in staff time devoted to it.

So, we won't add them if they don't look new. It isn't worth the time and materials invested in them.

After assessing condition, someone in the system looks up the circulation stats to see if they will be checked out. Here you are probably good. Many MA books check out well.

If a library cannot add a book to their collection, the next thing we do is sell it in our support group book sale. Some people want to tell us they will only donate if we add to the collection. Just be aware and ok with some books being resold. Hey, that money goes to other books and programs etc. So it is helpful. But some patrons get bothered by us not adding the book. So, I thought you should know this.

Old magazines will most probably NOT be added to a collection. They will probably be sold. It is possible they can just be thrown away/ recycled.

If you stored those books in your garage, please make sure they are mold and bug free. I am guessing this isn't the case, but this is just me going over general donation guidelines, so I thought I would mention it.

Finally, some smaller libraries simply don't have the staffing and/ or space to handle a large donation- however nice. So call that library first and ask if they can take a large donation.

I would check with Dean's suggestion first. They are more likely to circulate more of the items than a general library.

 

I am going to add one more general note while we are on the topic of donating books.

I know most of you out there grew up like I did- with your parent telling you it is NOT ok to throw away books- they are wrong!

This came from an era where books were difficult to mass produce and far more rare.

If one has a book in bad shape, or outdated medical, college, legal, books- IT IS OK to recycle them! It really is! And Libraries can't resell them, so you just make us throw them away when you (general you) leave them by our door after we close. We don't want to be responsible for someone getting in legal, medical trouble by using outdated information, so we don't sell them or use them in any way.

People call us and say things like "I have my nursing textbooks from 2001" or "I have an old Encyclopedia set from 10 years ago" and I thank them for thinking of us as I tell them we can't even resell those things. People think these things still have value, but honestly they just don't. We don't want old VHS tapes either- sorry. Hardly anyone else uses VHS anymore. They don't sell and they are being phased out of most library collections.

My mom raised me to never throw away books, but I got over it really fast working in a library.

I give you permission to override your old conditioning and throw away said books.

(Crawling off my soap box now.............)