Old Management Books and others

[Irishgirlyc58]

I have a large eclectic group of books from management/public administration to Anne Rice and others.
These are old books- like 20-30 years old not collectors items [emoji38]
Goodwill doesn’t take books as they don’t sell.
I live in a small town with no other options.
Do I just throw these books away?
It just seems wrong but honestly I don’t want them and neither does anyone else.
I’m not a person who does yard sales or sells on social media either.
Thanks in advance for any advice you may have!

 

[Sunset]

I don't know the name of site, but there are some sites where you can enter the ISBN and they will tell you how much $ they will pay for the book.

Otherwise, it's the recycle bin for us.

 

[dak2018]

I have a large eclectic group of books from management/public administration to Anne Rice and others.
These are old books- like 20-30 years old not collectors items [emoji38]
Goodwill doesn’t take books as they don’t sell.
I live in a small town with no other options.
Do I just throw these books away?
It just seems wrong but honestly I don’t want them and neither does anyone else.
I’m not a person who does yard sales or sells on social media either.
Thanks in advance for any advice you may have!

Yup - they are recycling fodder. Most libraries won’t even take many of the older books because they can’t be sold for even pennies. Thank them for the memories and ditch them.

 

[W2R]

Check your library. When I moved (back in 2015) I donated over 10 boxes of 20-40 year old technical books to my library and they were glad to get them, for their periodic fundraising book sales.

 

[omni550]

Some ideas here:

https://www.honestlymodern.com/how-to-dispose-of-old-books/

https://greencitizen.com/recycle-books/


omni

 

[Badger]

Check your library. When I moved (back in 2015) I donated over 10 boxes of 20-40 year old technical books to my library and they were glad to get them, for their periodic fundraising book sales.

I just gave our local library almost the same amount of college level Biology and Chemistry books about a month ago. I also donated about 30+ fiction books. I won't be using the science books anymore and although I prefer holding a paper book I found the free online books from the library to be more convenient during the pandemic.

Cheers!

 

[OldShooter]

A few months ago I was cleaning my book inventory and had several that I offered here for free/first come, first served, shipped book rate at no charge.

They went pretty quickly and (I hope) to good homes, but the postage cost me more than I expected. I'll do it again next time I clean but I'll ask the recipients/honor system to reimburse the postage.

.

 

[Jerry1]

The unfortunate thing about books is that, at least here, they don’t want them in the recycle. There are recyclers that take books, but not very convenient. I did think about cutting the binding off and just recycling the pages, but ugh, too much work. Ended up just tossing them in the garbage. Not something I was happy about.

 

[Sunset]

We even threw some paperback books into the fireplace when we had a fire. It took a few fires to burn them entirely which was a surprise to me.

 

[brett]

The only ones that I kept for any length of time were my cost accounting and consolidated financials texts. Shillinglaw as I recall.

Every once in a while I wanted to check something. No idea where they are now though. Perhaps victims of our huge pre/post retirement downsizing and move.

For whatever reason, DW seems to want to hang on to a few her nursing texts from what seems like a century ago. Sentimental value perhaps.

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

Thanks everyone.
I’ll have to check to see if they are recycle or garbage here.
I’m thinking that’s where most will go. Particularly 30 year old diet and exercise books. So outdated.
I will add exercise dvds. My son says no one has a DVD player anymore. I know I don’t.
It’s just so weird but I guess part of getting older is that what used to be common is now outdated.
Even the management books- you can probably find the information needed on the internet.
I used to love rereading some of my public administration books but I haven’t picked one up in about 3-4 years.
I guess it’s a good thing I retired!

 

[W2R]

Again I'd suggest making the (very slight?) effort to walk into the library with one of the books as an example, and ask the librarian whether they would want similar books.

I admit it's probably much easier to just give up and assume they are trash since you don't want them. I probably would have tossed mine too, except that Frank took some old books over there and donated them, the week before I did that. His were even worse than mine, it seemed to me. So I thought, why not try.

I was amazed when they accepted my books gratefully, despite the fact that they were decades old, outdated, and obscure, on topics that would interest very few people I thought. I asked them why they weren't concerned about how outdated they were, and the librarian said something to the effect of, "Well, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and we can probably get a few dollars for them at the annual book sale. Or if not, we trade such books with other libraries all over the country, and could get something we want that way."

 

[braumeister]

All the libraries around here have either a large bin outside or a table inside. They are happy to get any donations of any kind of books. One of our big local libraries will also give you a receipt you can use for tax purposes.

Annually, or in some cases quarterly, they hold sales of the donated items along with books they are getting rid of from their regular collections. The money helps support them and since the sales are all run by volunteers the cost is nothing.

What doesn't sell after a few sales gets disposed of in various ways. Nobody should ever hesitate to donate unwanted books to a library. They are very creative in the uses they make of them.

 

[jollystomper]

We have found one outfit in the DMV that buys books, DVDs, and CDs. They will pay a few dollars for a carton of books (think 10 reams of copy paper box size). When DW is willing to part with some of her books she will bring them there.

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

Again I'd suggest making the (very slight?) effort to walk into the library with one of the books as an example, and ask the librarian whether they would want similar books.
."

I actually know our Libriarian and can email him but our library has been closed with only minimal services due to an extensive ( and much needed) remodel.
But it’s worth a try.

 

[John Galt III]

I still have lots of technical manuals from my w*rk days. Last time I checked, which was about 8 years ago, my library was not accepting them for donations. Maybe now they are. Will ask again. They are always having book sales and the place is always packed with shoppers. Also tried to sell and even give them to book stores, and there was zero interest, lol.

 

[eytonxav]

Our library has an outside book return bin that can also be used for donating books. I would not assume the library will not take them. Also, a college or uni might be receptive if they have a business school.

 

[Koolau]

When I finally pitched all my chem books, they were over 50 years old. There were only 4 elements back then (earth, air, fire and water) I recall that text books were changing rapidly in the late 60s and I'm sure that accelerated later. Not sure why I saved them. I guess it was because they were so expensive when I bought them. I had to pay $8 to $15 for them!

 

[John Galt III]

When I finally pitched all my chem books, they were over 50 years old. There were only 4 elements back then (earth, air, fire and water) I recall that text books were changing rapidly in the late 60s and I'm sure that accelerated later. Not sure why I saved them. I guess it was because they were so expensive when I bought them. I had to pay $8 to $15 for them!

With me it's old 80's mainframe programming books. About 70 of them, all free from w*rk. They let folks keep them when they quit or got laid off.

Everyone says they are worthless, since all that stuff is online (I doubt it).

I see them listed on eBay for about $30 each, plus shipping, but I can never see if they have sold any. I guess that means they haven't ever sold any, lol.

 

[Koolau]

With me it's old 80's mainframe programming books. About 70 of them, all free from w*rk. They let folks keep them when they quit or got laid off.

Everyone says they are worthless, since all that stuff is online (I doubt it).

I see them listed on eBay for about $30 each, plus shipping, but I can never see if they have sold any. I guess that means they haven't ever sold any, lol.

Look at it this way: After the apocalypse (whatever form it takes) you'll be one step ahead of everyone else in rebooting for defeating all the zombies.

 

[John Galt III]

Look at it this way: After the apocalypse (whatever form it takes) you'll be one step ahead of everyone else in rebooting for defeating all the zombies.

Yesss !!

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

We had that conversation at my house. Without books how will we be able to rebuild civilization after the zombie apocalypse. [emoji38]