Finding a good home for your books

Summary: Readers value finding a good home for their unwanted books. If you are down-sizing, moving, or spending more time on electronic devices, readers want to make sure their books are in a place where someone values them. Here is a description of the different ways books are recycled, sold or given away.

People seem to care about where their books end up. No one wants to throw books away; in fact, that is a core value that my customers gave to me, as is fitting of a business that has been intertwined with the power of giving.

Readers are very excited to make sure personal collections go to a good place.

So what is good? Our customers seem to value giving books to the following places.

  • libraries
  • local book sellers
  • thrift stores

Library donation space typically fills first and books are sold but very few books given to the library are suitable for the collection development librarian ie making it to the shelves. Library stores are typically where the best donated books end up. However, this is changing in the past few years with some library stores closing and some being downsized.

Library branch closures, for remodeling or permanent closures will also squeeze available space that the friends of the library organization gets for selling books.  So libraries are a good option for giving away books but in some parts of the world in maybe unavailable.

Most of the above would apply to suburban and urban book donors. Rural libraries probably benefit more from book donations because of limited funding, volunteer staffing in some cases, and a community that understands the collection development needs. If you read a popular book you may be more likely to give it to the library if you know most of people in town. Also smaller towns have a smaller base of book donors so a rural library needs to market and get the word out more when it does do a collection drive. Also a rural library may have more general collection development needs so a donated book is more likely to make it in the general collection.

Local bookstores are technically a for-profit business but the lionshare don’t make any money at all. A surprising amount don’t even pay themselves. So giving books to a local bookstore while not tax deductible is a way to support your local bookstore. They also may trade books with you as well. Trades usually add up to a discount on a purchase verses a full out trade but again, they prolly aren’t making any money so having to pay $3.50 instead of $7 for your favorite mystery or fantasy seems a good trade. A bookstore also knows better what books may be useful to readers, more so then a thrift store.

Thrift stores may or may not be tied to a charity. Book Driver is tied with FirstBook and recently Sustainability (where you can drop off books if you don’t want us to come pick them up). They are all for-profit (even Goodwill although you do get a receipt and the donation does do a lot of good). Some just trade as a low cost store which in itself offers an indirect benefit to the middle class, which I feel is becoming a big charity case in itself as wages decline. Thrift stores don’t always have a charitable component but giving books does help them in their mission to offer low cost goods to the community. Why are books important for a thrift store? They bring people into the shop! Books are a great way to get people in the store so they can make a small purchase, check out the more expensive merchandise and start to build trust. Thrift stores that do it right are constantly turning their book inventory for frequent shoppers and it works.

So these are the three places that your donated books end up. Some recycling companies say that they don’t throw away any books. I’m not sure if that is possible given that books have no use as a raw material for other purposes. One country’s recycling is another countries trash. 

Also I’m not sure Africa wants a bunch of useless books.  Carting around useless books, that no longer have any readership, to other’s countries, in the name of a zero landfill policy is not my idea of best practices. It reminds me sometimes of that scene from The Incredible Burt Wonderstonewhere a down-and-out Vegas magician decides to “bring magic to Africa” but when he gets their, all the villagers want is water and food. If you ask me, what Africa prolly wants is a 3D printer to print the books they need, not the ones that no one here wants.

Here is what I do know, for sure. Services like ours and Better World Books are experts at helping finding the best home for your books. So if you care about that, make sure to contact an expert.

– Matt Johnson