Booktrash

jack: 10th Mar 2006 - 16:49 GMT

i knew a lady who hid $100 dollar bills in books. she also would roll up the bills and place them in a flower pot. the stupid lady,(and i do mean stupid) would forget that she put the money in the pot and would water the flowers every day. yes, the money rotted. she never placed it in plastic. i think of the interest she lost in addition to the principle but as i said she was stupid. remember, a fool and his money are soon parted.

EvilGentleman: 10th Mar 2006 - 16:55 GMT

I cannot believe there are people who would throw out books that are still readable! What a waste! Have they never heard of used book stores, or perhaps donating to libraries?

Peter: 10th Mar 2006 - 17:00 GMT

yeah, i know, right? i wish we had a used book store around here. nyc seems to be a very temporal/disposable-oriented/non-sentimental place, on many levels. most people just stack them on their stoop or curb wit ha post-it that says "free! take me!" or something like that, so i do...

GGP: 10th Mar 2006 - 17:12 GMT

i found a really cool first edition of an old mystery novel--signed by author--in Brooklyn Heights a few weeks ago. You could totally create a fabulous personal library from discards alone! Great post.

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 10th Mar 2006 - 17:29 GMT

When the Astoria Library wanted to get rid of a bunch of its books, it dumped them outside in clear plastic bags. I saw the commotion outside the library and instantly thought, "book burning" because I'm paranoid, and was relieved to see tons of free books. I joined the crowd and picked up a bunch of great stuff.

EvilGentleman: 10th Mar 2006 - 17:49 GMT

My parents and I used to own used bookstores in Chatham, New Brunswick and Cornwall, Ontario when I was a child. (I owned the comic department, as the starting inventory was all from my collection). I used to spend countless hours sorting books and reading whatever caught my attention. Those are some of the happiest memories of my life. I am surprised there is no used book store close to you. Here in Montreal, I can think of about a dozen used book stores I know of, and those are just the English stores! Remember, the English population of Montreal is comparable to the population of Albany or Rochester. But maybe our colder climate makes us more avid readers...

Peter: 10th Mar 2006 - 18:00 GMT

i think here, its more of a fiscal issue. im not sure if a used bookstore would make enough profit to cover the outlandish rent they'd have to pay for a space big enough to have a worthwhile store in, sadly...

EvilGentleman: 10th Mar 2006 - 18:25 GMT

Hmmm... an old canteen truck converted into a mobile used bookstore... hot dog vendors who sell Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton novels on the side... Owners of suburban used bookstores cruising through New York's residental neighborhoods in pickup trucks, paying 25 cents for every intact book brought to them by the neighborhood kids...

I smell opportunity... I gotta buy a pickup truck...

Catherine Penfold-Waxman: 10th Mar 2006 - 19:09 GMT

That's actually a frickin' brilliant idea. Lunch and a book.

joey: 11th Mar 2006 - 02:33 GMT

what about the strand bookstore. 9 miles of books. surely the strand is still selling used books in nyc. actually if you want used anything- come to california. berkeley, ca has used clothes, books, cds, computers, cars . . .

Micah: 16th Mar 2006 - 15:33 GMT

Do they have library books sales where you are? In Edmonton every summer at the Fringe Festival and every fall they sell off old books, CDs, videos for really cheap, like 50c. for a paperback, 2$ for CDs. You can pretty much build your own private library out of that. It is an event to look forward to, and to plan ahead to carry all your findings home.

Arthur: 29th Mar 2006 - 08:49 GMT

I've got an apartmentfull of used books I need to donate to charity or sell to a flea market vendor. Does anyone know how I can do this?

Sammy Finkelman: 10th May 2006 - 14:56 GMT

EvilGentleman: 10th Mar 2006 - 16:55 GMT
I cannot believe there are people who would throw out books that are still readable! What a waste! Have they never heard of used book stores,

> or perhaps donating to libraries?

The library will just throw them out, more neatly and secretly.

Be very careful about donating to a public library. Their practice
often is to simply discard any books that they were not planning to
add to their collection. This is especially true about the Brooklyn Public Library system. I have rescued from their garbage many many books.

The library system was also discarding books they removed from their collection but may be doing less of that now - or at least not putting it in garbage bags just outside the doors of branches. (that is now much more limited to damaged books)

They put very few books up for sale - they just put them out to be
collected by Sanitation Department.

I have been told that places that might not do that are nursing homes
and hospitals, probably because they don't have librarians or are not
planning colections. It would be wise to check to see what a place
actually does with books before donating them.

Certain branches prepare black garabage bags that you can see in the street. You can check them on the nights before regular sanitation pickup. I think there is a maop in the yellow pages. The dates of pickup are the recycling day and either 3 days before or 3 days afterwards.

EvilGentleman: 10th May 2006 - 15:12 GMT

Interesting information to know. Thank you.

I.T.U.C.: 13th Jun 2006 - 15:19 GMT

How about a bring borrow or take shelf. We exchange loads of books for adults and kids alike at work. Many of the books have been found in abandoned properties, that me and my co-workers are charged to fix-up. But alot just come from those at work, who just want to pass old ones on.

Peter: 13th Jun 2006 - 15:21 GMT

thats a good idea, actually... now, i just need to find space in a place where people enjoy reading, heh.

Raph : 4th Sep 2006 - 15:54 GMT

Bedsidebooks is a student run program that collects, sorts and distributes used books to nursing homes, homeless shelters, schools and other non profits. More information can be found at www.bedsidebooks.org (or email bedsidebooks@gmail.com).

Our main location is in New York.

madame maxime: 25th Aug 2007 - 03:10 GMT

I've moved across country and have lived in many different states. Always I carried my books with me, and when I went to graduate school I kept accruing more. The last move from Mass. to Brooklyn was the worst of all, mainly because of the boxes and boxes of books I packed to take with me. During my first year in NY, I often had a hard time making ends meet, so I would choose books I thought I could sell at used bookstores, just to make a few dollars. I learned very quickly that they cherry pick your collection and perhaps take 10 for every 50 books you bring in. They choose them according to what they think will sell in their particular neighborhoods. Same with the libraries--they need to take books that are in demand. So people who put books out in clear plastic bags to be RECYLCED are not uncharitable ogres. Just this week, I looked around my apartment at all the books I would never re-read, all those from grad school so filled with my notations that no used bookstore or library would ever take them, and "specialty" gift books no one else was likely to want. I suddenly realized that books aren't sacred objects; nor should they be "furniture", housed forever on shelves so that visitors might be duly impressed. So I set out on a book purging quest. Some I will put out in boxes with a "free books" sign; but others I have tossed in recycling bags. I'm up to 15 of those now with more surely to come. If I had simply trashed those books it may have been one thing, but I am recycling them. I actually found this websites with these posts when I typed in "donating books in NY," because I thought that I could take my leftover "free books" to some place that will use them, and I still hope to do so. But one thing I've learned from reading some of these posts: I won't put my bags of books out to be recycled until right before the recycling truck comes. I don't want people ripping them open and strewing them across the sidewalk, as in the photo above (not THAT was inconsiderate); nor do I want to be judged for having thrown out "sacred relics."