Textbook Revolution: Getting Rid of Used Books

Getting Rid of Used Books

Every once in a while, someone writes in to ask what to do with old textbooks. I never had a good answer, until now. Jacquelyn Gill put together this list of places to donate used textbooks and has been kind enough to share it with me. Jacquelyn is a prolific reviewer at Amazon and knows what she’s talking about when it comes to textbooks.

Link to: Jacquelyn’s Original Post
Link to: Jacquelyn’s Amazon Book Reviews

Jacquelyn’s Post:

I recently went through the usual cycle; I had a stack of books I was looking to offload, consting of a mixture of old textbooks, duplicates, and the ragtag assortment that I had no interest in reading. I took them to the used bookstore first, which thinned my pile a little. I set two free via BookCrossing. What was left was a collection of older textbook editions, dog-eared mass markets, and oddities – these I dumped off at the local St. Vincent’s, where I picked up more books than I’d dropped off. This got me thinking about used books, and so I did some research and found a variey of options to unload my future literary orphans. Some ofthese I’d heard of before, but I was especially surprised to see al the options for donating old textbooks. I present the fruits of my labor, that you, too have some options to consider the next time you want to cull the herd:

1. Libraries! Your local library (remember school libraries as well) will often take books for their library sales if not for their shelves.

2. Hospitals, women’s shelters, youth hostels, senior centers, or nursing homes. Many of these places have thier own collections of books for their patrons, and rely solely on donations.

3. Organizations like Books Behind Bars collect books for prison inmates across the country, or you could contact your local prison. Others include Books Through Bars and Chicago Books to Women in Prison.

4. Military personnel overseas. Operation Paperback is a national organization that delivers books to troops stationed overseas, and many places have local organizations.

5. EcoEncore is a nonprofit group that takes book donations and sells them, with proceeds going to Pacific Northwest environmental organizations.

6. HousingWorks is a nonprofit cafe and bookstore, with 100% of their profits going to health care, housing, job training, advocacy, and other services for homeless New Yorkers with HIV and AIDS.

7. Bridge to Asia collects used textbooks, books, and academic journals, which are sent to universities and schools in Vietnam and Cambodia. There are collection locations in Chicago, San Francisco, and LA, or you can mail in donations.

8. Connecticut’s Darien Book Aid Plan collects books that are not older than ten years and sends them to libraries, schools, and Peace Corps programs overseas. The charity also gives to prisons, hospitals, Native American groups, Appalachian groups, and hospitals.

9. Reader to Reader collects books for distribution to schools in need, including those in the inner city and Native American reservations.

10. Book Aid International delivers books to underdeveloped nations. Other groups that work on developing libraries in developing countries include the Salamatu Foundation, Books Beyond Borders (they pay for shipping), and Room to Read (donations go to building libraries in southeast Asia).

11. Looking to get rid of textbooks? Consider Books for Africa, the Sudan-American Foundation for Education, the American Chemical Society’s Project Bookshare (for chemistry textbooks), the American Medical Student Association (medical textbooks), the University of Sri Lanka’s Physics Library (physics) and Better World Books.