trashy book donations

[MrsEclipse]

At a small branch I worked at for a while we got donations that I went through. Some stuff got trashed, but mostly it was textbooks and paperbacks. One time someone donated a cd of HIStory by Michael Jackon. I saw it on the shelf in the backroom one day and the next it was gone. Yeah, people working at the library would take some donated stuff.

At my library that's a privilage and a job perk- I've got a small collection of bad books and CDs that I've snagged in the back room so it didn't have to be packed up and shipped off to the Internet. But if it's not allowed where you work, I don't care how cool the CD is. It's not for you!

[Mnemjian]

We buy used books at my work, and once we go through them and get all of the salable stuff out, people often ask, "Where can I donate the rest of these?" Usually I want to tell them to donate them to the trash, because the ones we can't use are often ripped to shreds, completely outdated, water damaged, or worse. But these people are so charitable that they wouldn't dream of just putting them in the trash (where they rightly belong ).

[KellyHabersham]

Well, to be honest, I thought as a kid that anything I was done using would be handed on to someone else. I wore hand-me-down clothes that then went to other kids if I hadn't destroyed them, and toys I was done with went to my younger cousins. It wasn't until I was in middle school and my church started working with a local food pantry that I learned the concepts of 'if you think it's too old/gross for you to use, other people probably agree with you', and 'donate food YOU'D actually want to eat'.

That would partically explain this particular donation incident, as these were mostly children's books, and I can totally understand they wouldn't have realized that the library couldn't use books with "Crystal Smith" scribbled all over the cover/pages. (this being an example of the stuff I tossed out)

[Juggler]

Think of the nastiest, most beat up, farthest out of date, most useless piece of crap book someone has tried to donate to you and I'll bet that someone tried to sell something as bad here. Mnemjian, can back me up on this one.

[Librarybabe]

Oy.

My library director (good-sized public university) actively SOLICITES donations of any kind. He thinks that if we take people's stuff, they'll eventually give us $$, too. No one had yet done so.
We've become a re-seller on Alibris. When I think of the amount of staff time it takes to sort and document all the cr*p that we get, I become nauseous.
I HAVE composed a "donation song" that I sing (sometimes aloud) when I'm working with gifts....I'll PM it to whomever might be interested.

[Primer]

From the other side...I can remember being in the position of being grateful for anything I could get for free, even if it was in poor condition. I think that may be why I'm such a pack-rat now.

[Ben_Who]

When I was a sprout, my mother wouldn't let me throw old books away if there was still a chance that there were at least two legible pages not stuck together with grape jelly, or if they didn't look as if they'd actually been flushed down the toilet at least five times. Even today, I read books to the point of disintegration, but my mum once made me make a donation to the school library of about two dozen books, all in varying and extreme stages of decay.

My roommate also has the same book fetish, the idea that the cheap paperback he bought is somehow a cherished museum piece, even if - ESPECIALLY if - he could just pop down to Borders and buy a new copy for six dollars and the book will never go out of print. The idea of throwing away a book makes him tremble inside. I'd wager that he, too, donates a lot of yellowed wastepaper to libraries.

[ralerin]

Question regarding the old books-Is there a recycling plant on your area that can take them? Or you could start giving away "free firestarters" of bundled up magazines and pages torn from books to people who have wood stoves. Just some thoughts. If the book is obviously moldy, dusty, etc, then throw them out, but I'm sort of curious. If it's going into a landfill, why not recycle them instead?

[KellyHabersham]

Question regarding the old books-Is there a recycling plant on your area that can take them? Or you could start giving away "free firestarters" of bundled up magazines and pages torn from books to people who have wood stoves. Just some thoughts. If the book is obviously moldy, dusty, etc, then throw them out, but I'm sort of curious. If it's going into a landfill, why not recycle them instead?

We do put the old/unuseable books in our recycling bin, but staff has to be "sneaky" about throwing things out......I guess there's been complaints from customers in the past who assume that we're throwing out perfectly good materials.

[LibraryLady]

Dear KellyHabersham,

I feel for you. Every Librarian has to deal with this sort of thing at one time or another.

Uncle George has died and the family is cleaning out his house. Certainly the local public library would be thrilled to receive the boxes of rare and almost surely valuable books retrieved from his attic or basement.

Almost certainly not!

Books kept in attics or basements are almost sure to be infected with insects or mildew. Putting those on the shelves could endanger the rest of the collection.

People also don't recognize that getting a book on a shelf takes time and money. In a specialized library, it may cost 60USD or more (not counting the cost of the book itself) from the time it's ordered until the time it's available for readers.

Simply going through a box of old books can be expensive for public libraries that don't get a lot of funding. Checking healthy books against titles already in the collection takes more staff time and money. If the offered copy is in better condition than the one the library already owns it might be accepted but that's a rare thing.

Please, think and talk to the library before making this sort of donation. Before bringing the books in give the library a list of the books you plan to donate. The list should include author, title, and publication information ( City of publication, publisher and year of publication) You should also check the books for problems that might require preservation measures.

Finally, before offering a box of books to a Library, weed out Reader's Digest Condensed Books. These are better donated to a hospital, nursing home or charity thrift shop. No Library wants them.

People in hospitals and nursing homes are ill and often have shorter attention spans than they would normally have. A Reader's Digest condensed book might prove just right for an afternoon's reading.

These books are often well-received in Thrift Shops because of their decorative value. Reader's Digest Condensed Books are characterized by a bit of gold and a color on the spine. People with more money than taste often buy them because the spine colors match the decor of their parlors. I now it sounds crazy but I have visited several gracious homes in which the only visible books were these.

[depechemodefan]

People also don't recognize that getting a book on a shelf takes time and money. In a specialized library, it may cost 60USD or more (not counting the cost of the book itself) from the time it's ordered until the time it's available for readers.

That reminds me of this loser.

She came in and all her interaction with us was punctuated with barbed insults. Someone tries to show her how to use a database and she asks, "do you even know how to use this database?" someone tries to show her how to use the microfilm machines, and she acts so snotty, again questioning how the librarian is doing anything.

She also checked out a book some time before and lost it. She doesn't want ot pay the replacement fee, she wants to buy the book on ebay and give it to us. Part of the problem is we have contracts with publishers so we can't just replace a book from anywhere. Also, there is a cost to replacing it, with the barcode and other things and I guess the way we get those things isn't just pasting that on the book itself.

Also, fuck her. If she doesn't want to take responsibility for being a fuck up, she should just never walk into the library.