Is it time to get rid of my paperback books?
 

Hi everyone,
I find myself thinking about this today while I reorganize and clean for company. Our library system in Florida is the best I've ever used with access to all of the county's library collections and a speedy inter-library loan program. Here in Maine, this year, I am borrowing all of my books via Overdrive. (While I find that I don't seem to remember the books as well when I read them on my iPad, the convenience is great).
These books have given me such pleasure over the years. But...maybe it's time to pass them along to someone else. The Community Center where I quilt has a free book shelf for both kids' books and adult books. Maybe it's time to add to that.
What do you think?
lots2do

I buy and sell at a used book store so I just turn them in and get new ones.

I loan many books to other readers (neighbors, friends, relatives) and when they come back, I keep special ones and donate the rest to an organization that sells books and does good things with the money. It's called REACH. My name is in every book in pencil before loaning out.

unless you have a very favorite, i say they should go... others will be able to enjoy them instead of them just sitting on a shelf.

I went through this a couple of years ago. I also use Overdrive and love it. (mostly I get audio but some kindle) I had so many bookcases overflowing with books that it was getting ridiculous. I got rid of most of them, keeping my absolute favorites. As I went through them I was amazed at how many I didn't want and to this day I don't miss them.
I'm a huge lover of audiobooks and have several ipods to accomodate them. I still can't seem to part with my nursing books, even though they are really old. But other than them the books I kept are extra special. I'm so into getting rid of stuff these days :)

Thanks for your responses. I do think this is the right thing to do.

We sold or donated almost all the books in our collection about 14 years ago. They were taking up too much space, and I finally realized that in the unlikely event I wanted to read one again I could either get it from the library or buy another copy. I haven't converted to digital format yet, but probably will one of these days. Meanwhile I use the public library.

Quilting books, however - that's another story. I do re-visit the same books frequently, and my collection is always growing.

Yep, pass them on. Lighten your load and brighten someone else's day.

Our library here is always willing to take books. My Husband has way more than I do. I have donated mine all along.

Well my library is not always willing to take books. I checked out a "classic" book, one that is required reading in high school (ie, not some dime store novel) . Anyway, I left it out in the rain, and ruined it. So I went and bought a brand new copy of the book, and took it to the library, with my apology. Needless to say, the librarian was not happy, she explained all books had to be approved, and selected by a committee. (wait, wasn't this classic already approved and selected????). It seems each new printing by a publisher makes a new barcode number, and now they don't match. She went on and on. and to tell you the truth, I'm not sure what I was suppose to do. I think I was suppose to to and say it was "lost", pay the $15.00 lost fee, and let the library committee buy the new one. (the new book was only $6.95)....but it would not be there and available when the high school kids needed it. I can't figure it out, but I do know they don't want any donated books that way. Books that are "donated" are sold at a "book fair" in the parking lot for cash, and the cash goes to the library committee, who selects and buys only "approved books". Just wanted to share.

i had quite a library of paperbacks for years, and I would read a favorite now and then. Every so often I downsized them. However, I noticed how yellowed some books were, so they would go into the recycling box. The print is usually small and it is now difficult to enjoy them unless I use store-bought reading glasses, lol. Now I am a fan of Overdrive and borrow Kindle books from my local library. Amazon sells Kindle Books and I buy those when the prices are reasonable. eBooks are a blessing because the type/font can be adjusted to a bigger size.

I almost never buy books except for quilt books!

My DH still has his books from college, over 40 yrs ago, has never once used any of them as a reference for information. I have packed and lugged these things so many times. :rolleyes:

I keep a diary of the books I have read with a mark to indicate worth re reading in the future or passed along. I give away more books than I keep. My post office has a trade shelf and then there is a community trade box that I use. I don't keep books unless they are really special to me. I always write a little note in the cover and sign my name and hope future readers will do the same as they are passed around.

I moved about 2 years ago from a home to a small condo. One of the things that had to be downsized was my personal collection of books. I kept only those that I know I would read again. I kept series that bring me joy and a donated nearly all of my paperback books to my local library for their sale. Honestly, my local library supplies me with all I need but some books really have stolen my heart and those I kept. I donated 12 of those big brown paper bags of books to the library and then gifted all of my nieces and nephews with a big bag of children's books for Christmas that year. Each child got between 25 and 30 books. I was an early childhood teacher and bibliophile. Now I only have a few very special children's books that belonged to me, my children and those that are favorites of my grandchildren. Oh, I kept antique text books from the 1920's in my children's collection. What teacher can give those away?

I currently have over 5000 books in my library, and last Christmas I donated over 1500 to different organizations. I have the space for my books, and have reread all of them at some point, and will continue to over the years.

I donate the books that I didn't really enjoy.

I say if you have the room, and like the books keep them, otherwise, donate - but be careful. My library wouldn't take the and I had to do some research to find organizations that would take them.

I just wanted to add that there may be a lot of behind the scene work at the book fair you may be unaware of. I was the chair of our local library's sale of donated books. As the books were brought in for donation they were sorted by library staff, any that were needed and could be added to library shelves were set aside. Staff had to manually add them to the collection, which does take time, and time equals money....so they were particular about which ones to add, but I know that many were set aside every year and added to the library shelves. Also, the money from our sale paid for many things besides books. Public libraries rely on government funding, which comes with many strings attached on how it may be spent. The funds we raised had no such limitations and was able to pay for things that otherwise would have been unavailable to them.

At the last library used book sale we had over 13 boxes of paperback books left. No one wanted them even when offered for free. We called nursing homes, prison, and missions. We took all the leftovers to Salvation Army. The library has a donation center for used books and volunteers sort and box them for the sales. The last few sales not many books were sold, even the newer ones. It's like the library is the middle man, receiving the books to deliver to the donation center.

I donate my used/read paperbacks to my local library all the time. When I get a paper grocery sack full, I drop them off. No issues. They either recycle or sell - their choice. I usually rent from my local library (in hard/soft cover vs electronic) and only buy when I am out of town and out of a book or locally when I am out of a book and the library is closed.

The local library is such a valuable resource that, sadly, most folks just don't realize. In addition to reading material there are tons of resource materials; cultural event tickets; etc. I love libraries and 'real' books!

I pick mine up at garage sales, etc and then donate them to a second hand store or give to a friend when I'm done. For me, I won't ever go electronic as I like the feeling of holding a book and if I should loose it, not a big deal. That's just me though.

Several years ago I purchased a Kindle because I was running out of book shelf space. Since then, I have ordered many of my favorite books for my Kindles (yes, I now have 3 different ones). I passed most of my paper copies to friends who then either took them to nursing homes or to another friend who worked with a military group to send books overseas.

And now I can put quilting books on the shelves for easier access. I don't think I will ever be comfortable doing quilt patterns from books on my Kindles.

I helped out after a library book sale in a medium sized town. There were so many books left (after everything was FREE the last hour of the sale). At the library's request I filled an entire dumpster (about 6' x 6' x 5' high) with paperbacks. And that didn't even make a dent in the books that were left.

There are entirely too many books around that no one wants.

Paperbacks are always welcome at the VA.

I had to laugh when you said you don't seem to remember some of the books you've read. I belong to a book club and have to keep a list of the characters as I go along. Also when I'm finished I do a book report in the computer. This saves me from getting half way through a book and thinking how familiar it sounds.

Used to have an excellent memory. (I'm aging with grace!)

I'm glad to have libraries. The only books in my house are quilting & scripture books. All others are borrowed from the library and returned there. I have/want no room to store them. Our family visits the library every week, and I am getting more and more comfortable with borrowing e-books too.

If you've gone away from paper books I say donate them...here are some great places:

Library-mine has racks of paperbacks and people can choose unlimited books for unlimited time from them
Church-if they are religious
RV Parks-ours has a "free" library where people can bring/take books and magazines
Guilds-quilt books/magazines you're never going to use
Nursing homes-both the residents and workers could enjoy them (also a great place to donate puzzles and puzzle books)

Some neighborhoods have small boxes set up for people to put in a book and then they can take a book (or not). Nice idea if you can find one nearby. Personally, we don't have a lot of room for books anymore, so we only keep ones that are really dear to us. If I buy a book (sometimes one just has to, you know), I read it and donate it to our library. They sell them to the public and that helps boost library funding. Win-win.

I've had quite a large library (mostly hardcovers) for years. In the last couple of years I have downsized by half by donating to a couple of fellows who set up "Little Libraries" throughout the city. Knowing I would never re-read them, I recently gave my set of Harry Potter books to a young lady who is enthralled with Harry. Now I have only about 500 books left to donate somewhere. :)

Mine mostly circulate in the family - my cousin, sister & I all have similar taste in books; and now my nephew is old enough to read more adult books so he's getting in on the rotation too.

The way we do it is we initial the books as we read them. If you want to keep the book, circle your initials. When the last person gets the book, if someone circled their initials we route the book back to that person; otherwise the last reader is free to dispose of the book however they see fit (or keep it).

I usually keep books that are part of a series as I tend to re-read the whole series as each new one comes out. On those, I wait until the whole series is done before I send the books out into rotation.

Books that end up with me that I don't want to keep either go to the thrift shop, or I exchange them for credit at the local used bookstore.

I think the person was doing a bad of of explaining how books get on the shelf. Libraries order books through a huge company (Baker and Taylor) so the processing of books in today's world is outsourced. They put the barcode on the book, download the book into the library catalog and send it to your local library. Each book has an ISBN number and if you add books from donations you end up with many multiple records for the same book which makes it difficult on the reference staff.
At our library we look up the ISBN number and tell the patron to go on Amazon and see if they can find that number and if it's cheaper than our price to order it and bring it in. We then manually add the book to the system and waive the $15.00 lost fee. Most libraries won't do that but we have a director who is people oriented and wants to make the library experience a good one. All donated, used books that aren't food stained, don't reek of perfume or smoke or are dry rotted from being stored in a hot attic or garage are used by the Friends of the Library for book sales. Any books left after the sale go to the prison in our town.

I donate mine to Good Will and Salvation Army.

This is my experience as well, but I take advantage of it. If I run out of things to read while on vacation, I pull up one that I read a few years back and it's almost as if it's a new book. A free one at that.

We own thousands of books. It is also time for me to clean house. I am giving many to my children that are married so they can build their own library. I am also thinking of selling some to use the money towards things we need or want. I am sure we will still be left with many books even after some cleaning. I am also sentimentally attached to some.

To SusieQOH: consider donating the nursing books to a university that has a history section such as University of Virginia.

unlike rocks, paperbacks have a lifepan of about 50 years before the spines give out and the pages fox and fall apart.
If there is a paper recycler near you can donate to them.

I'm happy to donate to my library, they go in the sale room and get light of day at the Friends of the Kalama Library sale each year.

Makes me kind of sad my quilt books went in the sale this year rather into the library but it is a vicious cycle, they are so cheap to purchase on the secondary market they have little dollar value.

I have an eye disease and now read on with the amazon kindle app where I can upsize the print. I've been doing this for about 18 months, and just this morning deleted one timers and have 45 books in the electronic library.
Even digital books can become a huge burden to me, I don't want to be saddled with a lot of anything

Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts.
I am going to go through the books in the next few days and take them down to the Community Center when I go to my Quilting group. They aren't old and yellowed, still in good shape. I'm also going to go to the local bookstore and buy some children's books to add to the shelf. That'll be a win-win for the shop, the children who tag along with grown ups for meetings at the center and for me. Kids deserve new books. (I also taught preschool through third grade). And it'll be fun to pick them out.
Now, my special children's books are staying put as well as the quilting books.
And yes, the option to make the print larger is a real plus. Even if I remember reading 'real' books more than I remember electronic ones. Ha!

I would pass them on unless they are ones you like to re-read any of them over again. I have gotten rid of most of my books and just wear out my library card (my DH's phrase) as well as Overdrive on my Nook. I rarely buy any books anymore. Magazines are a different story. :)

I love to read and just for fun I have been logging how many I have read since the beginning of the year (so far it's around 40 - both regular and Overdrive.

I've never heard of Overdrive. Must check it out!

I too am getting rid of my book collection. I have an e-reader and find it so much easier. For one thing, I love to read series' and it's often difficult to find all the books in any given series in paperback. It's not an issue with e-books. I also don't have to worry about trading them in or selling them.

We have a lot of Kindles in the house. Each have hundred or more of books on them. One for classics, one for my quilting, one for children's books, one for science fiction, one for general fiction and one for reference books. I have a personal Kindle and DH has one. I have favorite books I re read at least every few years. These I have in hardback, leather bound when possible.

Sorry you had this experience. Most public libraries aren't this unfriendly and will be happy to take your replacement copy in exchange for the book you left out in the rain. Also, most libraries don't have selection committees.

My library has twice yearly book sales, and limited storage space. Books are collected the week prior to the sale, then sorted. Currently the library is purging lots of books that are put in the sale also. There are always books left over, and for years we had a book dealer come to take them. Now we send them the Better World Books, they pay the shipping costs. When any of them sell, we are periodically sent a check. It adds up, and we do get some return for them. Their website says they deal with thousands of libraries.

I have some paperbacks I would never get rid of, I just love them and reread them from time to time. I do give all the books I read away to my family and friends and leftovers go to thrift stores. They are always selling them in our area.

I have, in the past, subscribed to book clubs where I got 4 or 5 books every 6 weeks. After I read them, O put them on a box to send to my sister in law, who reads them, then shares them with someone else.