Where can I donate books in the US?
March 15, 2016 8:23 AM   Subscribe

My usual place for donating books just went up in smoke. Where should I donate books now?

I live in Baltimore. I read a lot of books. Previously, when I finished a big stack o' books, I would lug them down to the Book Thing, a warehouse of wonder and excitement and free books.

On March 2, the Book Thing had a fire. According to their Facebook page, they may not reopen until next year. I...will read a lot of books in the upcoming year. Where can I donate them?

(I'd prefer donating over reselling, because my elderly sci-fi paperbacks and cheesy romance novels have little re-sale value. Plus, I get a nice little glow at the thought that my elderly sci-fi paperbacks and cheesy romance novels are either a) being given away for free to interested readers or b) benefiting some charitable institution in some minuscule way. However, I don't care about making deductions for charitable contributions on my taxes, so I don't need receipts or paperwork of any kind. In fact, I'd prefer to just donate anonymously/unobtrusively.)

Obviously there's the ubiquitous Goodwill, but I'm wondering if there's any other places -- maybe idiosyncratic places sort of like the Book Thing? -- that would be glad to get my old dumb books. I'm happy to pop these books in a box and mail them anywhere in the continental United States. But where?
posted by toast the knowing to Society & Culture (23 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Better World Books has dropboxes.
Look for Little Free Libraries around your town as well.
posted by soelo at 8:32 AM on March 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


We donated to our local library. Made me feel good to know that my books would be there if I wanted to visit them. They gladly took them. Now they're having a book sale. Hmmmmm.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:32 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


If you can give them away 1-5ish at a time, you could probably drop them off in nearby Little Free Libraries. It looks like the little free libraries map is down, but if you google Little Free Libraries, Baltimore, you can find lots of articles about them and most of those surely include a location or two.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:33 AM on March 15, 2016


Google your local AAUW chapter. Many of them run annual book sale fundraisers and accept books all year to prepare.
posted by Miko at 8:38 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Prisons? They can take the SF, though not the romance novels.
posted by holgate at 8:44 AM on March 15, 2016


Another option if you don't mind giving them away piecemeal is Paperback Swap. They do not all have to be paperbacks, and you may end up giving away only one at a time, but it also lets you "shop" for new books across every other members' giveaway lists.

I signed up for it about 8 years ago when an outgoing roommate was moving to Australia and left behind 15 boxes (not an exaggeration!) worth of books in a wide range of topics. I listed them all on PBS and within a month I'd gotten rid of nearly half, and used the credit to get myself about 20 of my childhood favorites that I'd lost. Today just about everything she left behind is gone (the Spanish-language book on Feng Shui is one of the only remaining things) and I regularly offload books I want to get rid of on there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:47 AM on March 15, 2016 [3 favorites]


Donating to the local library is a great idea. In my library district, those books do not usually go onto shelves but are saved for the library book sale, which earns money to keep the library open and buying newer books that their readers are asking for. I think that's pretty normal for most districts, but I wanted to clarify that because of Bunny's comment.

I've also had great luck with PaperbackSwap but it is definitely more effort than dropping the books off somewhere. I'm to the point where I only do it passively -- I have about 60 credits from sending off old books and I just wait for new books I want to come in. And they charge now, about 50 cents a book to be shipped to you, which is totally reasonable but again, not charity.
posted by possibilityleft at 8:52 AM on March 15, 2016 [10 favorites]


If you don't mind mailing them - you might look into Books for Africa. My place of employment recently hosted a book donation box for several weeks - which is how I heard of them. I'd recommend reading their guidelines - they aren't interested in overly gory murder mysteries for example, but it looks like sci-fi and romance would be welcomed.
posted by rdnnyc at 8:55 AM on March 15, 2016


Sometimes I coordinate homeless feeds down in Reno. My local library is amazing - they give me about a hundred or so paperbacks and magazines each time we do the feed. We leave them out on a table and we get rushed by so many people who are so appreciative for free, good reading material. One homeless guy told me, "I can't wait when you guys come (he recognizes our group). I can't tell you how a good book makes a long, cold winter night guy faster. And on nights I don't have anything to eat, I forget about the hunger pangs a little if I've got a good book to pass the time."

I still get weepy thinking about that.

So find a local organization that maybe helps out with things like this and drop off some books.
posted by HeyAllie at 8:55 AM on March 15, 2016 [12 favorites]


Similar to others, our library sells books to raise money, but they are also good about finding good homes for those that don't sell. Check with your local librarian, who can tell you if the library takes donations and can probably direct you to other local places if they don't.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:06 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


Better World Books.

Not only do they have a dropbox system, if they don't have one near you you can ship your books to them by mail.
posted by wwax at 9:07 AM on March 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


We donated to our local library. Made me feel good to know that my books would be there if I wanted to visit them. They gladly took them. Now they're having a book sale. Hmmmmm.

I also give mine to my local library. Or, I pop them in the little free library boxes that are popping up all over the place these days.

I was told by a librarian friend that often adding books into the general collections is more costly than most people assume (cataloging, maintaining, brodarting, etc.), so they generally sell all donations to buy the collections they really want. I have no problem with this.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:21 AM on March 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm on the board of our local library and we happily accept used books.

Our staff goes through them, puling out unusual books for our eBay store, and others go on a shelf for $0.25 each. Only a few actually make it into our collection.

Whatever is left goes to Better World Books as noted upthread.

It's mostly a fundraiser.
posted by bricksNmortar at 9:39 AM on March 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


soelo: Look for Little Free Libraries around your town as well.

Or start your own, if you can't find one around you.

Besides homeless shelters, you can also see if youth and womens shelters are looking for books.

How to get rid of (almost) anything in Baltimore - books:
Sell: Normals, The Book Escape
Donate: The Book Bank from Baltimore Reads, Baltimore County Public Library System, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Book Thing of Baltimore

(Inter)national: Books 4 Cause
posted by filthy light thief at 9:57 AM on March 15, 2016


You may want to contact the origination that just burned down. They may want to do book sales for fundraising to rebuild, or you could sell them and donate the money to them yourself.
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:21 AM on March 15, 2016


The Baltimore Science Fiction Society might be interested in your SF novels. They have book sales at various festivals, and festival season is coming up.
posted by EvaDestruction at 10:29 AM on March 15, 2016


Our library has a book sale, but stopped accepting donations a few years ago (I think they had about 8000 more copies of 'The Da Vinci Code' than they needed.) Since then we've taken to putting our overflow books (and used clothing) into a local Boys & Girls club drop box. Once you start keeping an eye out for drop boxes you'll find them everywhere!
posted by usonian at 11:31 AM on March 15, 2016


There are several organizations that ask people to send books to US soldiers. Operation Paperback and Books for Soldiers are two I found by Googling (which means I can't personally vouch for them). Some organizations have limitations on what kinds of books they send.
posted by FencingGal at 12:23 PM on March 15, 2016


I volunteered for a while with Books for International Goodwill (currently Annapolis-based), which sends books overseas.
posted by 2 cats in the yard at 2:31 PM on March 15, 2016


Not sure where in Baltimore you are, but there's a Little Free Library outside of One World Cafe on University and Canterbury, and one on Keswick between 40th and 38th. That's where I've been bringing mine for the past week or two.
posted by JannaK at 2:50 PM on March 15, 2016


Open Books!
posted by bibliogrrl at 5:12 PM on March 15, 2016


Try your local courthouse(s). People waiting around for jury selection always need something good to read.
posted by Beti at 7:10 PM on March 15, 2016


The Harry Potter Alliance has an annual Accio Books! campaign that may be especially interested in your sci-fi.
posted by divabat at 3:39 AM on March 16, 2016


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