Live In A Small Town? Donate Your Unwanted Books To The Library.
Could I have gone to the trouble of selling all my unwanted books on Ebay or Half.com? Sure. But I would have only made a few bucks for all that work. Instead, I have donated 52 books in the last couple of weeks to my local library in preparation of my move out of town. See, the library here is a very tiny little building that doesn’t have a lot of books, so I figured that by donating a ton of books on sustainability, the environment, and “going green” I would be helping the locals learn more about how to help out our world. People in town will now have free access to these great books that I no longer needed to have in my bookcase, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
Sometimes the smallest things you do can mean the most to others, so if you live in a smaller town like I do and have books you think others should have access to, donate them to your local library instead of selling them for a few bucks. That benefits all of us in the long run.
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- Where To Donate All Your Unwanted Stuff.
- Rising Gasoline Prices And The Demise Of The Small Town.
- October Is Fair Trade Month – Help Your Town Become A Fair Trade Town.
- Bush Proclaims Nelson Mandela Dead On Live TV. Small Problem Though…
- Help! My Town Doesn’t Recycle Plastic!
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Small town or not, most libraries could use the donations! We have a great library system where I live, but that’s in large part due to the many donations it receives. Books that it doesn’t put on the shelves are sold twice a year at HUGE library sales that raise many thousands of dollars.
While I do sell some books on Amazon, I donate most of my old books to the library. In fact, I’ve donated so many that I’ve started seeing past donations at the huge library sales. Of course, I do gravitate towards the same genres year after year so it’s not a huge surprise.
Very true Meg. It’s just that smaller libraries have much smaller budgets for books, so it’s even more important to donate the ones you don’t want
Of course! Resources are generally scarce in small towns. I loved reading growing up, but our library was not all that spectacular. Maybe I’ll take some books over there some time.
Please ask before bringing in books to your local library. I work in a small branch library in a big city and we have to dump mountains of moldy, ripped/torn, yellowed, or out-of-date (1999 Tax help?!?) books each week. Many libraries appreciate the donations for fundraising book sales, but items have to be in decent condition. Please ask them first.
Such a shame to hear that, Jen! But yes, good advice to ask if you aren’t sure!
Our library isn’t too picky about what they accept. They’re fortunate to have a large warehouse for donation storage and library sales. And they sell a lot of stuff for such low prices (most less than $1!) that I suspect most books find a new home. Yet even with such low prices the library sometimes makes six figures! When I say the library sales here are big, I mean BIG — people camp out to be first in line to get in like they were selling a new video game system! And this isn’t what anyone would call a big city.
However, I definitely would NOT donate a moldy book since the mold can spread to other books and is a health hazard.
Before I moved to Portland, I donated about 100 books. The ones that were no longer practical (Windows 95, etc) went to our local book recycling center. Great reminder!