20 Places to Donate Used Books
June 4, 2024 8:42 AM Subscribe
"Books are an important part of our lives but many of us still struggle with what to do with old books. When we decide it’s time to part with them, we want to know they are going to a nice home where they can continue to enrich and improve other people’s lives."
This topic frequently has appeared on Ask. For instance.
This topic frequently has appeared on Ask. For instance.
When we decide it’s time to part with them, we want to know they are going to a nice home where they can continue to enrich and improve other people’s lives.
"It has no feelings!"
posted by praemunire at 9:26 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
"It has no feelings!"
posted by praemunire at 9:26 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
In the city where I live there's a free library on every other block. In most cases just an old bookcase on the street but they are very highly trafficked with books appearing and disappearing at a rapid rate. We've taken so much from them that when we last had a pile of books that needed to go, out they went around the corner.
Also why do books have to be donated? The local English language used bookstore is hungry for old books too and will take almost anything for cash or credit. They provide a service - walls of books well-organized for anyone to come in and buy.
posted by vacapinta at 9:29 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
Also why do books have to be donated? The local English language used bookstore is hungry for old books too and will take almost anything for cash or credit. They provide a service - walls of books well-organized for anyone to come in and buy.
posted by vacapinta at 9:29 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
The local English language used bookstore is hungry for old books too and will take almost anything for cash or credit.
This has not been my recent experience in Canada. At this point, giving things to used bookstores is mostly also just a donation and they won't even take everything you are willing to *give* them.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 AM on June 4 [13 favorites]
This has not been my recent experience in Canada. At this point, giving things to used bookstores is mostly also just a donation and they won't even take everything you are willing to *give* them.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 AM on June 4 [13 favorites]
I'm on the other side of this... I teach and I have a bunch of shelves in my room. I go to my local library. The friends of the library sells big bags of books for cheap. I now have lots of books to feed to my critters.
posted by dfm500 at 9:56 AM on June 4 [3 favorites]
posted by dfm500 at 9:56 AM on June 4 [3 favorites]
we want to know they are going to a nice home where they can continue to enrich and improve other people’s lives.
It’s OK, the books are going to a big library upstate where they can run around and play.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:15 AM on June 4 [53 favorites]
It’s OK, the books are going to a big library upstate where they can run around and play.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:15 AM on June 4 [53 favorites]
we want to know they are going to a nice home where they can continue to enrich and improve other people’s lives.
Honestly I don't even care about that, I just need someone to remove them from my home, because they are many, and heavy, and I am small and have no vehicle. And it has proven all but impossible!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:18 AM on June 4 [9 favorites]
Honestly I don't even care about that, I just need someone to remove them from my home, because they are many, and heavy, and I am small and have no vehicle. And it has proven all but impossible!
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:18 AM on June 4 [9 favorites]
Around here, people just put them out on the curb, and if no one picks them up, they go in the recycling. I pick up a lot of 60s-70s sci-fi from the street. The paper is usually flaking already, and they usually end up in the recycling after a read.
Look, if you love a book, give it to a friend or donate it, but if it's not that good a book, you have my permission to pulp it. It's fine. Not everything has to go in a genizah or whatever. I'd much rather people put this much thought into what they do with their old appliances.
posted by phooky at 10:35 AM on June 4 [13 favorites]
Look, if you love a book, give it to a friend or donate it, but if it's not that good a book, you have my permission to pulp it. It's fine. Not everything has to go in a genizah or whatever. I'd much rather people put this much thought into what they do with their old appliances.
posted by phooky at 10:35 AM on June 4 [13 favorites]
BookCrossing is also a thing
As is Paperbackswap. About 18 years ago I had a roommate up and move to Australia, and she left behind 15 boxes of books (amongst a shit-ton of other stuff); the subsequent roommate tipped me off to PBS. (He worked in his grad school library and would nab the textbooks they were getting rid of and post them, because they always got claimed; he would then use the credits to track down the obscure books he was after).
I got rid of a little over 13 of those 15 boxes of books within a year that way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:38 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
As is Paperbackswap. About 18 years ago I had a roommate up and move to Australia, and she left behind 15 boxes of books (amongst a shit-ton of other stuff); the subsequent roommate tipped me off to PBS. (He worked in his grad school library and would nab the textbooks they were getting rid of and post them, because they always got claimed; he would then use the credits to track down the obscure books he was after).
I got rid of a little over 13 of those 15 boxes of books within a year that way.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:38 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
Worked in a used bookstore for a while. Can confirm that recycling your moldy, over-hi-lit copy of Great Expectations from high school is not a thought crime.
posted by HeroZero at 10:43 AM on June 4 [20 favorites]
posted by HeroZero at 10:43 AM on June 4 [20 favorites]
I put most in Little Free Libraries but save the good stuff to donate to our local used bookstore. I really like having a local used bookstore, and though it's technically for-profit, I'm pretty sure there isn't a whole lot of profit.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:48 AM on June 4 [4 favorites]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:48 AM on June 4 [4 favorites]
I threw out a lot of books years ago, when my life had hit the skids and I had to move back in with my mom for a bit. There was nowhere for the books to go, plus I wasn’t exactly in the best of mental health at the time. I wasn’t acting fully rationally.
And to this day, as in, I was literally chided for it again this very morning, my now-housemate deeply disapproved of the disposal. People are weird about books.
posted by notoriety public at 11:15 AM on June 4 [8 favorites]
And to this day, as in, I was literally chided for it again this very morning, my now-housemate deeply disapproved of the disposal. People are weird about books.
posted by notoriety public at 11:15 AM on June 4 [8 favorites]
Obligatory note about the Salvation Army's anti-LGBT and PR push: The Salvation Army Wants You To Believe They’ve Changed
posted by AlSweigart at 11:28 AM on June 4 [13 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 11:28 AM on June 4 [13 favorites]
My local free Book Thing notes:
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:28 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
We particularly welcome donations of popular fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, classics, non-diet cookbooks, science topics, English dictionaries, and Bibles. We’re finding it hard to keep these shelves restocked.No encyclopedias or subscription-only journals, please and thank you.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:28 AM on June 4 [7 favorites]
And to this day, as in, I was literally chided for it again this very morning, my now-housemate deeply disapproved of the disposal. People are weird about books.
The fetishization of physical books, instead of the content in books, grows increasingly weird in my mind as we move further and further into the digital age.
There are beautiful, wonderful books out there. Rare historical books that few copies remain. Artfully printed books with glossy, high-colour images. I am not saying we should throw all of those in the trash.
But if you're moving and you have a box of mass market paperbacks -- even if they are mass market paperbacks of great literature -- recycling them ain't a terrible choice. The nearly complete collapse of used book sales isn't because there is a shortage of shitty copies of books out there.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:42 AM on June 4 [10 favorites]
The fetishization of physical books, instead of the content in books, grows increasingly weird in my mind as we move further and further into the digital age.
There are beautiful, wonderful books out there. Rare historical books that few copies remain. Artfully printed books with glossy, high-colour images. I am not saying we should throw all of those in the trash.
But if you're moving and you have a box of mass market paperbacks -- even if they are mass market paperbacks of great literature -- recycling them ain't a terrible choice. The nearly complete collapse of used book sales isn't because there is a shortage of shitty copies of books out there.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:42 AM on June 4 [10 favorites]
Circa 2010-15 I was in charge of processing donations at a branch of a public library, and hoo boy the things people would drop off sometimes. One day we arrived to open the building in the morning and there were two large boxes full of mint condition VCR repair manuals sitting by the staff entrance. I'm sure whoever did that meant well, but that's not something your local library can use.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:44 AM on June 4 [8 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:44 AM on June 4 [8 favorites]
Okay somebody do magazines now...
I keep all my back-issues of Fortean Times, which is also the only magazine I still subscribe to, because they are awesome and still fun to read. Everything else got recycled. They are just magazines, you know?
I've accepted the fact that ideally most books are transitory in my life. I will never re-read the vast majority of them and I don't need them collecting dust in my house. We already have way too many bookshelves full of books that need dusting despite semi-regular culls. Now-a-days I almost exclusively read things from the library or as eBooks on my Kobo. I save buying a hard copies for something I want to keep (rare) or that I can't reasonably get otherwise. My wife doesn't like eBooks, but she is ruthless about disposing of books once read.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:51 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]
I keep all my back-issues of Fortean Times, which is also the only magazine I still subscribe to, because they are awesome and still fun to read. Everything else got recycled. They are just magazines, you know?
I've accepted the fact that ideally most books are transitory in my life. I will never re-read the vast majority of them and I don't need them collecting dust in my house. We already have way too many bookshelves full of books that need dusting despite semi-regular culls. Now-a-days I almost exclusively read things from the library or as eBooks on my Kobo. I save buying a hard copies for something I want to keep (rare) or that I can't reasonably get otherwise. My wife doesn't like eBooks, but she is ruthless about disposing of books once read.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:51 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]
Years ago I volunteered to help run the annual used book sale that was a fundraiser at my kids' elementary school. People would donate old books and they would be sold during the annual fun fair. We eventually asked the school to scrap it because it was a lot of work for very little money and there were always boxes and boxes of books left over -- always a couple vanloads -- every year that had to be disposed of. There was nowhere to store them, nobody wanted them back, libraries didn't want them donated, and thrift stores and the like would tell us they were just going to recycle most of them.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:03 PM on June 4
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:03 PM on June 4
The fetishization of physical books, instead of the content in books, grows increasingly weird in my mind as we move further and further into the digital age.
For me it's the opposite: my appreciation of the physicality of books has grown. For some reason I find I retain information better with an actual book, often being able to remember where on the page a particular passage was.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:09 PM on June 4 [11 favorites]
For me it's the opposite: my appreciation of the physicality of books has grown. For some reason I find I retain information better with an actual book, often being able to remember where on the page a particular passage was.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:09 PM on June 4 [11 favorites]
Will this also work for my copy of "Windows 95 Secrets?"
posted by rhizome at 12:29 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]
posted by rhizome at 12:29 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]
As we move further into the digital age, the continuing existence of books (and movies and records) that can't be remotely erased with the touch of a button is becoming more and more important to me.
posted by Crane Shot at 12:33 PM on June 4 [13 favorites]
posted by Crane Shot at 12:33 PM on June 4 [13 favorites]
For some reason I find I retain information better with an actual book, often being able to remember where on the page a particular passage was.
I do, too, and strongly prefer to read serious fiction with pencil in hand to mark things, but oddly this has not led me to greater attachment to the physical medium in itself. I would regret losing my elaborately annotated copy of The Golden Bowl with all the tracing of the imagery-symmetry (and my increasingly irritated commentary over the years on the lack of basis for the value of Amerigo), but I'm not sentimental about the volume itself.
posted by praemunire at 12:40 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
I do, too, and strongly prefer to read serious fiction with pencil in hand to mark things, but oddly this has not led me to greater attachment to the physical medium in itself. I would regret losing my elaborately annotated copy of The Golden Bowl with all the tracing of the imagery-symmetry (and my increasingly irritated commentary over the years on the lack of basis for the value of Amerigo), but I'm not sentimental about the volume itself.
posted by praemunire at 12:40 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
Chiming in as another previous used bookstore clerk to say it's okay to let things go to the great pulpery in the sky.*
Not that I'm doing it with many of my books, though. Oh heavens no.
* I still fondly remember the rage of these two women at the bookstore when we refused to take their boxes of moldy, 20+ year old paperback pop sci and self help books and gently suggested that they recycle them. "Book burners!" they hissed. "Fahrenheit 451!" It was terrible and wonderful.
Also, I have reached into a box of books and encountered broken glass - "What's the problem? Just be careful." said the caring customer when I refused to continue - and other things I do not even want to recount. I mean, ewww. I mean we went through a LOT of hand sanitizer. Your used bookstore clerk has seen many unspeakable things and if they reject your books, be kind. There's trauma there.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:44 PM on June 4 [18 favorites]
Not that I'm doing it with many of my books, though. Oh heavens no.
* I still fondly remember the rage of these two women at the bookstore when we refused to take their boxes of moldy, 20+ year old paperback pop sci and self help books and gently suggested that they recycle them. "Book burners!" they hissed. "Fahrenheit 451!" It was terrible and wonderful.
Also, I have reached into a box of books and encountered broken glass - "What's the problem? Just be careful." said the caring customer when I refused to continue - and other things I do not even want to recount. I mean, ewww. I mean we went through a LOT of hand sanitizer. Your used bookstore clerk has seen many unspeakable things and if they reject your books, be kind. There's trauma there.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:44 PM on June 4 [18 favorites]
Your used bookstore clerk has seen many unspeakable things and if they reject your books, be kind. There's trauma there.
There's a used bookstore here in Brooklyn which used to have a bulletin board on display devoted to "weird shit we found inside books people have given us". For propriety's sake it was confined to paper objects, but I still remember seeing things like a photo of someone's bare ass completely covered in baby powder, or a post-it note with a child's handwriting on it, discussing the vaguely threatening things that child planned to do to his aunt.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:57 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]
There's a used bookstore here in Brooklyn which used to have a bulletin board on display devoted to "weird shit we found inside books people have given us". For propriety's sake it was confined to paper objects, but I still remember seeing things like a photo of someone's bare ass completely covered in baby powder, or a post-it note with a child's handwriting on it, discussing the vaguely threatening things that child planned to do to his aunt.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:57 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]
I do a lot of giving away of books every week. First they get posted on PBswap. If no one bites, then I put them in one of the many Little Free Libraries around town. There are SO MANY! Five within two blocks! To find LFLs with space, I just drive around til I find one that needs a top up. (And I'm the fairy who neatens the whole works up in the process.) I've even been known to take boxes of books from folks on FB who don't have time to get rid of them and do the errand for them. But yes, some books really do belong in the recycling bin or the fire pit. That happens too. Last one was a falling apart, fifty year old paperback of Goebbels Diaries.
posted by RedEmma at 12:58 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
posted by RedEmma at 12:58 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
bookmooch is not donating - it is swapping and you as the shipper pay the fee to mail the book in exchange for a credit. My guess is that they included bm and not Paperback Swap because there is now a fee for PBS, either a yearly fee or a fee per swap. PBS is also US only, while bookmooch is world wide.
I've belonged to both of them for years now, thanks to Metafilter. I haven't sent or received a book on bm in a few years now. I forget about them and some of the site is very neglected. I pay $20 a year to keep up my membership on PBS. I have too many credits built up to post a lot of new books. I regularly drop books off in the LFLs in my town and in the ones near my job. Last year I got to pet the cutest dog at one and this year I got to leave some books in one shaped like a Tardis.
posted by soelo at 1:37 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
I've belonged to both of them for years now, thanks to Metafilter. I haven't sent or received a book on bm in a few years now. I forget about them and some of the site is very neglected. I pay $20 a year to keep up my membership on PBS. I have too many credits built up to post a lot of new books. I regularly drop books off in the LFLs in my town and in the ones near my job. Last year I got to pet the cutest dog at one and this year I got to leave some books in one shaped like a Tardis.
posted by soelo at 1:37 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
I collect old books (some of my oldest come from the 1700s). When I was going through some of them, I thought to donate them to a history house/historical association to add to the shelves of preserved homes in the area. I got some interest from the county historical association from one lady...but the next coldly replied that "they had no room on their shelves". I did respond that I didn't want to just give them unnecessary books - my intention was to give 19th century books to 19th century homes as examples of what would be seen there.
I reached out to two other museums/preserved homes. Nobody is interested. I'll go back to my used book store and hope they'll take some of them.
posted by annieb at 1:47 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]
I reached out to two other museums/preserved homes. Nobody is interested. I'll go back to my used book store and hope they'll take some of them.
posted by annieb at 1:47 PM on June 4 [5 favorites]
my appreciation of the physicality of books has grown. For some reason I find I retain information better with an actual book
"Holding the weight of a book in your hand, turning the pages, and even highlighting your favorite passages are all experienced in the body. In fact, according to researchers, turning pages as we read creates an “index” in the brain, mapping what we read visually to a particular page, (Rothkopf, Ernst Z.,1971). This is part of what allows the brain to retain the information better when read from a physical book." [Psychology Today]
posted by HearHere at 4:20 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]
"Holding the weight of a book in your hand, turning the pages, and even highlighting your favorite passages are all experienced in the body. In fact, according to researchers, turning pages as we read creates an “index” in the brain, mapping what we read visually to a particular page, (Rothkopf, Ernst Z.,1971). This is part of what allows the brain to retain the information better when read from a physical book." [Psychology Today]
posted by HearHere at 4:20 PM on June 4 [7 favorites]
The town I live in used to do an annual book recycling day, in a parking lot. You'd drive up, volunteers would haul your boxes of books out of your car. All the local used bookshops had tables set up, and the books went from cars to one of them (they rotated to the next bookshop with each new car's books). The booksellers went through and pulled out anything that was of use to them before the remainder were recycled. There may have been intermediate steps. I thought it was a good system, at least for me, as I could drop off my books in one place, feel sure I wasn't overburdening the public library with crap, and that books that might still be worth something to someone had a chance to find their place.
posted by Well I never at 4:51 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 4:51 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
In Guelph, you can feed your unwanted books to the worms.
I am not surprised, having once lived there for over a decade. That is so Guelph.
posted by fimbulvetr at 4:56 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
I am not surprised, having once lived there for over a decade. That is so Guelph.
posted by fimbulvetr at 4:56 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]
Find your local prison books program.
posted by anshuman at 7:46 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
posted by anshuman at 7:46 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]
>Find your local prison books program.
Fully agree.
Apparently, I taught myself to read when I was 4. This was from listening to my mother read to me and my 2 sisters every night after dinner. I was reading at what they told me was a second-year university level in grade 7.
In grade 8, my mother became an English 101 prof, and we'd split her student's essay pile in 1/2. She'd mark one half, and I'd do the other. I've never watched TV. I read books and magazines instead.
A decade ago I was renovating and discovered that fully 30% of the floor space in my residence was occupied by books. It took me 3 days to pack them all away. Realizing that they were costing me considerable money every month just for storage, I decided to give them away.
I sold a bunch of the best-condition ones to the local used book retailer, Pulp Fiction.
Women's shelters and Youth-at-risk homes also gladly took many. So did First Nations' support facilities. Oddly, I had a brainstorm to offer them to the local Fire Departments, as I was their equipping their training center with Smart Boards, projectors, and sound reinforcement speaker solutions.
This left me with a bunch of random books which I then distributed to the many Free Little Libraries that have sprouted throughout Vancouver like mushroom spores after a rain in the fall.
There are so many that I no longer go to the Library to borrow, and I have stopped purchasing any books at all. Yet I still read 2-3 books a week. I find that the Free Little Library experience is kind of like a free-form experience sponge. You absorb things that you would never otherwise have encountered.
Currently on tap. The Book Thief. The Blind Assasin. The Boys of Summer. A Man Called Intrepid.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 8:31 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]
Fully agree.
Apparently, I taught myself to read when I was 4. This was from listening to my mother read to me and my 2 sisters every night after dinner. I was reading at what they told me was a second-year university level in grade 7.
In grade 8, my mother became an English 101 prof, and we'd split her student's essay pile in 1/2. She'd mark one half, and I'd do the other. I've never watched TV. I read books and magazines instead.
A decade ago I was renovating and discovered that fully 30% of the floor space in my residence was occupied by books. It took me 3 days to pack them all away. Realizing that they were costing me considerable money every month just for storage, I decided to give them away.
I sold a bunch of the best-condition ones to the local used book retailer, Pulp Fiction.
Women's shelters and Youth-at-risk homes also gladly took many. So did First Nations' support facilities. Oddly, I had a brainstorm to offer them to the local Fire Departments, as I was their equipping their training center with Smart Boards, projectors, and sound reinforcement speaker solutions.
This left me with a bunch of random books which I then distributed to the many Free Little Libraries that have sprouted throughout Vancouver like mushroom spores after a rain in the fall.
There are so many that I no longer go to the Library to borrow, and I have stopped purchasing any books at all. Yet I still read 2-3 books a week. I find that the Free Little Library experience is kind of like a free-form experience sponge. You absorb things that you would never otherwise have encountered.
Currently on tap. The Book Thief. The Blind Assasin. The Boys of Summer. A Man Called Intrepid.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 8:31 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]
I had to dispose of a lot of mildewed books; it was heartbreaking. They are buried in the lot next door. I have a short story in my head about a tree that will grow there, with words on its leaves, telling the stories buried there, but in some new way.
Too polluting and illegal, but why can't a pyre be built of my books and paper ephemera to cremate me when I'm dead? It would be fitting, and everybody likes a bonfire.
posted by theora55 at 10:03 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
Too polluting and illegal, but why can't a pyre be built of my books and paper ephemera to cremate me when I'm dead? It would be fitting, and everybody likes a bonfire.
posted by theora55 at 10:03 PM on June 4 [4 favorites]
It actually became easier for me to get rid of books when I became a published author.
As a reader, I own one copy of a particular book, and that physical copy is my personal representation of The Book Itself. Giving it away (let alone recycling it!) felt like I was deleting The Book Itself from my life.
Once I started getting boxes of author's copies and seeing photos of my book in places I'd never visit, I realized that no single collection of paper represents The Book Itself. I can give away (or even discard) as much printed paper as I want; every Book Itself that I read will always remain part of my reading history and my life.
So, this author agrees with the bookstore clerks upthread: books are meant to make your life better. If you're not getting joy or meaning out of your physical copy of a book any more... and there's not an obvious way to get it into the hands of somebody who will get joy or meaning out of it... then you have my blessing to recycle it (or even throw it out if it can't reasonably be recycled.)
posted by yankeefog at 1:36 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]
As a reader, I own one copy of a particular book, and that physical copy is my personal representation of The Book Itself. Giving it away (let alone recycling it!) felt like I was deleting The Book Itself from my life.
Once I started getting boxes of author's copies and seeing photos of my book in places I'd never visit, I realized that no single collection of paper represents The Book Itself. I can give away (or even discard) as much printed paper as I want; every Book Itself that I read will always remain part of my reading history and my life.
So, this author agrees with the bookstore clerks upthread: books are meant to make your life better. If you're not getting joy or meaning out of your physical copy of a book any more... and there's not an obvious way to get it into the hands of somebody who will get joy or meaning out of it... then you have my blessing to recycle it (or even throw it out if it can't reasonably be recycled.)
posted by yankeefog at 1:36 AM on June 5 [1 favorite]
Find your local prison books program.
Yes. And TFA has a link to one such.
posted by doctornemo at 6:33 AM on June 5
Yes. And TFA has a link to one such.
posted by doctornemo at 6:33 AM on June 5
Once and for all can someone please explain this: "fully 30% of the floor space in my residence was occupied by books [...] they were costing me considerable money every month just for storage" emphasis added?
I have read that sentiment over and over and over again in declutter tome upon declutter tome (all of which I have retained, BTW), and I simply cannot understand it. I do not understand how it costs actual money to keep piles of crap in a domicile.
If you live in and pay for a domicile and you fill it full of stuff (nonperishable, no maintenance stuff--not talking about Diogenes syndrome), does the rent or mortgage payment go up? Does it cost more to heat/cool it? If you remove the stuff from the domicile, will you not be paying the exact same rent or mortgage and maintenance costs for the space the stuff occupied? It costs you exactly the same money to store the air in the space where the books were that it cost you to store the books in that same space. Correct? Or what am I missing?
Is the argument that the space in the house currently occupied by books is a potential money-maker somehow? Okay: how? I can't air bnb it. What's a cottage industry I could set up in the space where my bookshelves were?
posted by Don Pepino at 6:42 AM on June 5
I have read that sentiment over and over and over again in declutter tome upon declutter tome (all of which I have retained, BTW), and I simply cannot understand it. I do not understand how it costs actual money to keep piles of crap in a domicile.
If you live in and pay for a domicile and you fill it full of stuff (nonperishable, no maintenance stuff--not talking about Diogenes syndrome), does the rent or mortgage payment go up? Does it cost more to heat/cool it? If you remove the stuff from the domicile, will you not be paying the exact same rent or mortgage and maintenance costs for the space the stuff occupied? It costs you exactly the same money to store the air in the space where the books were that it cost you to store the books in that same space. Correct? Or what am I missing?
Is the argument that the space in the house currently occupied by books is a potential money-maker somehow? Okay: how? I can't air bnb it. What's a cottage industry I could set up in the space where my bookshelves were?
posted by Don Pepino at 6:42 AM on June 5
I think the discussion here is conflating a few things.
1) Books in poor physical shape (ex: mildew).*
2) Books on topics we don't like for various reasons, including being out of date.
3) The supply of secondhand books now massively exceeds the demand for print titles.
I agree with #1, unless the thing is super scarce and can be repaired.
Being out of date is a good reason to recycle a book. I've got an Adobe Flash manual from around 1999 sitting by the door right now, awaiting the recycling bin.
#3 is what worries me as a literature prof, book collector, and reading fiend.
*One bookstore story: the owner of the shop where I worked visited a house where someone had died, leaving behind a collection of supposedly nice books. He entered a room to find lovely, floor to ceiling bookshelves full of... Reader's Digest Condensed Books. He regretfully explained that no, he couldn't buy those. The inheritor said, well, we have some other books in the basement. Down they went to a semi-finished underground spot, festooned in cobwebs, literally dripping with moisture. Along one wall were a bunch of rickety shelves, cheap wood hanging from wobbly brackets. The books there were hundreds of early 20th century rare books (my memory is dim, but they might have been a bunch of these). The bookstore owner told me that there were titles with Dali plates, all kinds of author signatures, and when he reached in to get them chunks of each book came off in his hand. You could see silverfish in the papers.
posted by doctornemo at 6:42 AM on June 5 [3 favorites]
1) Books in poor physical shape (ex: mildew).*
2) Books on topics we don't like for various reasons, including being out of date.
3) The supply of secondhand books now massively exceeds the demand for print titles.
I agree with #1, unless the thing is super scarce and can be repaired.
Being out of date is a good reason to recycle a book. I've got an Adobe Flash manual from around 1999 sitting by the door right now, awaiting the recycling bin.
#3 is what worries me as a literature prof, book collector, and reading fiend.
*One bookstore story: the owner of the shop where I worked visited a house where someone had died, leaving behind a collection of supposedly nice books. He entered a room to find lovely, floor to ceiling bookshelves full of... Reader's Digest Condensed Books. He regretfully explained that no, he couldn't buy those. The inheritor said, well, we have some other books in the basement. Down they went to a semi-finished underground spot, festooned in cobwebs, literally dripping with moisture. Along one wall were a bunch of rickety shelves, cheap wood hanging from wobbly brackets. The books there were hundreds of early 20th century rare books (my memory is dim, but they might have been a bunch of these). The bookstore owner told me that there were titles with Dali plates, all kinds of author signatures, and when he reached in to get them chunks of each book came off in his hand. You could see silverfish in the papers.
posted by doctornemo at 6:42 AM on June 5 [3 favorites]
Correct? Or what am I missing?
The (largely misguided, though charmingly optimistic) view that without the books you could live in a smaller and cheaper place, rather than just filling up the space you'd free up with other stuff.
posted by praemunire at 7:50 AM on June 5 [2 favorites]
The (largely misguided, though charmingly optimistic) view that without the books you could live in a smaller and cheaper place, rather than just filling up the space you'd free up with other stuff.
posted by praemunire at 7:50 AM on June 5 [2 favorites]
I'm often trying to hand-off kids books (they age out of them so quickly) even after sorting out the ones that have been destroyed by little hands. Offering them to any other families we meet etc. most are in the same boat of having too many.
Was at the "free box of kids books" on Facebook market stage - which honestly seems like it works best. It hadn't actually occurred to me put some in little libraries - we have only have one in any sort of walking distance (way too much snow for six months a year and snow plows that love to destroy any standing structure up to 10 feet into your property line), but I've put some in the car and will drive around to a few and see if I can fit some in. We don't have a second hand book store near us - probably a 30-40 mile roundtrip drive to do that, and I don't think the local Christian thrift store accepts books.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:25 AM on June 5
Was at the "free box of kids books" on Facebook market stage - which honestly seems like it works best. It hadn't actually occurred to me put some in little libraries - we have only have one in any sort of walking distance (way too much snow for six months a year and snow plows that love to destroy any standing structure up to 10 feet into your property line), but I've put some in the car and will drive around to a few and see if I can fit some in. We don't have a second hand book store near us - probably a 30-40 mile roundtrip drive to do that, and I don't think the local Christian thrift store accepts books.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:25 AM on June 5
AlSweigart, your comment links to a super-rich businesswomen piece; were you thinking of The Salvation Army Wants You To Believe They’ve Changed (Forbes Nov. 27, 2020) ?
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:34 PM on June 5
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:34 PM on June 5
>Once and for all can someone please explain this: "fully 30% of the floor space in my residence was occupied by books [...] they were costing me considerable money every month just for storage" emphasis added?
>I have read that sentiment over and over and over again in declutter tome upon declutter tome (all of which I have retained, BTW), and I simply cannot understand it. I do not understand how it costs actual money to keep piles of crap in a domicile.
I'm surprised that this is even a question.
If you have 500 sq. ft. of floor space in a 1500 sq. ft. residence dedicated to just storing your books, and you are paying $3000 monthly for that space, then it is costing you $1000 every month, just to keep those books, which you already read.
Get rid of those books and you can live in a $2000 month space.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:20 PM on June 11
>I have read that sentiment over and over and over again in declutter tome upon declutter tome (all of which I have retained, BTW), and I simply cannot understand it. I do not understand how it costs actual money to keep piles of crap in a domicile.
I'm surprised that this is even a question.
If you have 500 sq. ft. of floor space in a 1500 sq. ft. residence dedicated to just storing your books, and you are paying $3000 monthly for that space, then it is costing you $1000 every month, just to keep those books, which you already read.
Get rid of those books and you can live in a $2000 month space.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:20 PM on June 11
That's what I did. Doing it again soon. I don't need 7 leather jackets, or 5 bikes, or 21 T-shirts.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:36 PM on June 11
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 10:36 PM on June 11
Mod note: We're gonna take this thread and put it right in this stack for the sideblog and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:22 AM on June 19 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:22 AM on June 19 [2 favorites]
This summer one of my projects is to take the covers off a set of 1950 Encyclopedia Britannica. It makes me sad. I am cutting the pages out with an exacto knife, and I know that probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages have never been opened and never been read. So much effort and information in one collection. So many volumes. So much less information in the books than is currently on Wikipedia, even if you only count the information on Wikipedia on subjects from before the year the encyclopedia was published.
It's fascinating too to see how much information in them would now be considered plain wrong. Biology. Ancient History. Art History. Political information that was contemporary then. Paleontology. Climate Science.
My father bought this encyclopedia new before I was born, and due to some mis-planning the person who ended up with them, who had been hoping to use them for an art project, left them in my hands instead. Nobody wants them, I didn't want them in the first place, and the only way to get rid of them now is to cut the pages out of the binding and put the pages in paper recycling. I wonder if my father would be grieved to know they were being destroyed; they had meant something to him. His thirst for knowledge was gigantic. But I think he would have been dismayed that anyone had still kept them, long after they were demonstrably full of misinformation, and had become nearly three quarters of a century out of date. He wouldn't think they were still precious.
Hundreds of printed black and white photograph picture plates go fluttering down into the blue recycling bin. Black and white photographs of great Renaissance paintings and what was then modern high tech machinery. It's soothing work cutting them up. I am enjoying it. It still makes me sad. "As I am now, you once were. As you are now, I someday will be."
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:39 PM on June 19 [1 favorite]
It's fascinating too to see how much information in them would now be considered plain wrong. Biology. Ancient History. Art History. Political information that was contemporary then. Paleontology. Climate Science.
My father bought this encyclopedia new before I was born, and due to some mis-planning the person who ended up with them, who had been hoping to use them for an art project, left them in my hands instead. Nobody wants them, I didn't want them in the first place, and the only way to get rid of them now is to cut the pages out of the binding and put the pages in paper recycling. I wonder if my father would be grieved to know they were being destroyed; they had meant something to him. His thirst for knowledge was gigantic. But I think he would have been dismayed that anyone had still kept them, long after they were demonstrably full of misinformation, and had become nearly three quarters of a century out of date. He wouldn't think they were still precious.
Hundreds of printed black and white photograph picture plates go fluttering down into the blue recycling bin. Black and white photographs of great Renaissance paintings and what was then modern high tech machinery. It's soothing work cutting them up. I am enjoying it. It still makes me sad. "As I am now, you once were. As you are now, I someday will be."
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:39 PM on June 19 [1 favorite]
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