Matt weighs in on “book tossing bandit” – May 2015 Update

If you like “News of the Weird” then you might have heard about the mysterious trail of books appearing along Hwy 287 which runs between Denver and Fort Collins, Colo. Liam O’Brien’s post about the Literature Litterbug, also known as the “book tossing bandit,” breaks down nicely what happened and some of the deeper issues.

Our CEO Matt weighed in, making sure that people know that there are ways, many ways, to donate books. It took him all of ten minutes to find at least five options within minutes of Longmont, where the book tossing bandit lives. Matt also offered to pickup up and deal with the roughly 8,000 books in question.

We haven’t heard back and it was explained to us by an insider, that the fellow, whose name I’m avoiding using, was keeping a low-profile and didn’t want the incident turned into a media circus.

A follow-up Google News search revealed it was, way, way, too late to avoid that!

May Book Donation Results

Spring is a busy time for book donations and April/May has proven that. While the damp Colorado spring has disrupted many a-garage sale, we still managed to collect 2800 books in April, listing 610 in our store and donating the rest to local organizations. We also raised $107 for FirstBook so they can keep doing great things like this.

May 19 2015 Donation - First Book

New initiatives that Von Melee is working on including finalizing a name for our book donation service (Book Driver). In May, we doubled the amount of book drivers serving our customers and expanded drop-off points for people who prefer to drop off their books.

The whole idea of Book Driver is to make book donations easier. We are working with individuals, libraries, and bookstores to set up the network so you can donate books. Services we offer include,

  • book donation pick-up from homes and offices
  • awesome jobs!
  • book donation drop-off points
  • donations by mail
  • advice/information about how to donate books in your area
  • professional book donation consulting

Thanks for reading.