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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Apr 7, 2018 17:09:14 GMT -5
In Sacramento we have a volunteer non-profit organization called Friends of the Library. They take in donations, put the books up for sale—either in corners of the branches or on big sale days—and the proceeds go to the library. What ticks me off is that someone will donate a book that is in high demand or would be important to be a part of the library's collection, and instead of it going to the library directly, they sell it for pennies on the dollar! (The only exception is that a very few high-end books get recognized and appropriately priced.) This is for some bureaucratic nonsense I haven't yet figured out. For example, the latest Jack Reacher novel, now with literally hundreds of other patrons ahead of you if you try to reserve it, is sitting on the Friend's table right now for $3.00! Another popular work in new condition was pulled from the collection, marked WITHDRAWN, and is on sale for a buck! The latter is kind of a reverse donation. Another sore point is that the library doesn't like old books. They will junk a 20-year-old book on, say, Abraham Lincoln, and then go out and buy a new-this-year book to replace it! What a waste of money! Has anyone learned anything new about Lincoln in the last 20 years to warrant that? And then they complain because they don't have enough money, and they are closed on Mondays for the same reason. Grrrr! I've got a big collection of technical books (electronics, mechanics, etc.) that I would like to see in the library some day, but there's no way if they get treated like junk. Likewise a friend died whose son was a WWII expert with a bunch of modern military-oriented books that I have inherited, but I'll be danged if it winds up in a yard-like sale. There is a California State Military Museum in town that might be a good home for them if they have better sense than our own public library.
What's the policy in your library system?
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bbro2018
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Post by bbro2018 on Apr 8, 2018 14:01:38 GMT -5
I am a lifetime member of our local public library district, and I share the same frustration as you do, CampKohler. We usually have a three-day fundraising sale at our city's local ice hockey rink in which you find literally thousands of books, CDs, DVDs and magazines. (Ironically, our group is also called Friends of the Library--must be a fairly common combination everywhere...not to mention a fairly common condition.) The vast majority of these items go for 50 cents a copy--except for the high-end collectibles. And magazines, as a general rule, are free for the taking--which is fine if you've got dozens of copies of Better Homes and Gardens or Good Housekeeping. But there are exceptions. I have every issue of Hemmings Classic Car (nee Special Interest Automobiles) and many copies of Collectible Automobile, some of which are no longer available from the publisher.
I would love to donate them to someone who will enjoy them as much as I do, but I don't want them to be just cast aside on a freebie table! (Same is true for many other special interest magazines.)
I suspect one of the things that cause popular, relatively new books to be pulled quickly is that some libraries buy multiple copies of, say, your Jack Reacher novel, only to discover they bought too many. I know when I worked at our town's radio station, I routinely donated copies of the books we received as possible interv iew subjects to the library after their interviews (and I am grateful that the director of our branch library worked with the radio station from the day we first met up in the 1970s! He has since retired.), and some were sold off relatively quickly after their donations.
I realize there is an issue with any given library space, but many good books are timeless. Unless something really radical has happened to the subject of a particular library book (Lincoln inventing the Internet, for example, LMAO!), there is no reason to junk the tried and true to replace with with the trite and new. I, for one, feel bound encyclopedias (World Book, Brittanica, etc.) have been made obsolete by the Internet, but some things don't translate well to the electronic media.
That, buddy, is a situation that would cause my cigar to explode, so to speak!
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on May 1, 2018 22:40:47 GMT -5
If it's a mega-popular author and his/her newest work, you can't really have too many, unless you have more than one per branch. We have a floating collection, meaning the books go where patrons take them. Several copies of the same work wind up at any given branch as a result, but the reservation system (and big trucks) straighten that out. What ticks me off is seeing a FOL book sale with complete sets of very popular authors' works when there's not enough in the system for each branch to have one, e.g. W.E.B. Griffen (which at least is one of a few authors someone might buy and re-read over the years).
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Post by mullingspices on Jun 2, 2018 1:27:07 GMT -5
The library system here is just as bad. A few years ago a new public library was built but there were no funds to stock it. Quite a few people offered to donate books, but all were refused as the books did not "meet the needs of the community" as determined by the powers that were. It took over a year before the library got its first books and years more before it became fully stocked.
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bbro2018
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Post by bbro2018 on Jun 3, 2018 21:55:06 GMT -5
Haven't chimed in on this subject lately, but this past weekend was our annual "friends of the library" book sale. Don't know if the extremely hot weather we had Thursday and Friday nights (not to mention pop-up thunderstorms) had anything to do with it--or the fact the nearby high school graduation took place on Friday night--but it wasn't the liveliest place in town to be.
I did my part buying a few books (some for the grandkids and a few cookbooks for yours truly), but I did not donate any books, much less the Hemmings Classic Car collection this year. There were no doubt thousands of books left over, most of which were ended up to the Illinois state corrections system. A few have been put back in reserve for another book sale in October.
Hate to say it, man, but 1) just how many books does a person need and 2) you can only read so many book series (Sue Grafton, John Jakes, Harlequin Romances) before your eyes glaze over!
Any smoldering cigars to toss into this, buddies?
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Post by mullingspices on Jun 7, 2018 1:50:13 GMT -5
I once tried to donate a bunch of magazines to the library but was refused because they were "too old". This was really irritating because there were some car magazines in the stack, and the info on cars does not change. However, they had a policy about taking only recent issues. A couple of years later I went to the donated magazine section and found tons of older magazines!
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Jun 13, 2018 14:45:46 GMT -5
There's just something unforgivably snooty about libraries that find old books to be "too old" to keep. They must be using computers to review the check-out history or something, but just because a book has never been checked out doesn't mean that it isn't useful and shouldn't remain on the shelf especially if their shelving has a totally-empty bottom shelf throughout the entire building!
A new twist: Books that have been culled from the collection by my local branch, instead of being sent to the Friends of the Library sale, wind up on a free cart that is wheeled just outside the door. I have gotten a lot of books from this cart, not to mention two big boxes of VHS tapes when they decided to go all DVD. If any of the culls are from the Russian section, I take them to a Russian friend who donates them to a local private Russian-language library run by a Russian advertising rag. But there is another use for the cart.
If I have any old magazines or books that I don't think will meet the low standards of even the FOTL, I put them directly on the cart for others. The library or FOTL don't even get a chance to pass judgment on them; either they get taken by other patrons or wind up in the paper recycling program. However, if the items are locally produced publications from decades ago, I try to contact the local historical society, high school, or whoever published them to see if they want them back for sentimental or historical reasons.
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Post by SUVFan on Jul 16, 2018 9:37:19 GMT -5
Good topic. I'm headed to the library today to return a couple of books and find something new. I know they have a set of shelves in the vestibule where you walk in that are donated books for sale. But I don't know if they keep any. If one of my go to members of the staff is on duty, I'll find out what the scoop is and report back.
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Post by SUVFan on Jul 17, 2018 13:28:23 GMT -5
I ended up visiting today. I went to a branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, which is a large consortium of what used to be mostly small town single libraries in the suburbs, as well as the original downtown Columbus Library. I spoke with someone at the help desk, asking about whether donated books can make it to the shelves? I was told that it can happen, but it's very rare. Donations are managed by a separate organization called, "Friends of the Library." Checking the website I linked, there's a page about donations, that links to a page about donations of books. That page explains that book donations "will
be
added
to
the
collection
only
if
they
meet
the
same
standards
required
of
purchased
materials. The person I spoke with indicated that means they have to be things the general public is likely to be interested in, not obscure or self published works. Going a step further, I noted that often when I try to reserve something, I'll be told I'm number 75 in line for 33 copies. I asked, hypothetically, if someone typically purchased new books from a bookstore to be the first to read new releases and best sellers and after they finished (with the books in brand new condition), they wanted to donate them, and if it was a popular item with a long wait list, would they put that into circulation. I was told, "probably not." The explanation was surprising. I was told that the library system, being so huge, isn't set up to put single books into the catalogue. They buy new releases by the case, not the book. They try to keep the wait time for reserved materials at no higher than 3 to 1. When they see the line getting longer than that, if they think it will continue (i.e., the book is not that far from the release date), then they will order a new case of books, which are processed all at once in their processing center. Put simply, in their business model, processing a donated book onto the shelves is probably too expensive in their system. One option for donated books that might succeed in getting the books to the shelves might be to find a smaller library that has not yet been absorbed into one of these mega systems.
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reb
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Post by reb on Jul 29, 2018 17:22:36 GMT -5
Just happened to see this. I donated some brand new books that I got at a seminar once. Got multiple copies. I went and offerd the book to library. They wanted to review the book (just published). They did accept it...
The problem with our local library is a emphasis on computer equipment. We are fortunate to have interconnecting libraries to get books from so if our local library doesn't get them we can just order and it will show up at our local library. My wife reads e-books on Kindle, but evidently there is a bigger demand on those books and our library does not have enough of the more popular books ... at least that's what she tell's me.
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bbro2018
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Post by bbro2018 on Aug 7, 2018 21:47:12 GMT -5
Hey, reb! Glad to have ya join in the discussion. Most library districts probably have as much--if not more--action goin' in the e-books and e-mags than they do in the book stacks. In fact, I get an e-mail each week from our local district invitin' us to take part in children's activities, coloring for adults, etc., so they can get people into the library. I just hope there's still gonna be a place for traditional books. Let's fact it, what do ya do when ya can't recharge your battery or when your reader dies???
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Post by CampKohler (Sacramento CA) on Aug 9, 2018 18:52:02 GMT -5
I just went to the FOTL sale this Saturday for the Sylvan Oaks branch of Sacto Pub Lib. They set out free any donated books they think won't sell due to the small size of the community room in that branch, which is where the sale takes place. There is usually about two or three four-shelf carts full and maybe a couple of boxes of Nat Geos or other mags on the ground. Being as free is one of my favorite things, I was sure to be there and came away with four boxes of books.
One box was from the end of the sale when one of the volunteers decided that the hardbound and beautifully produced recipe annual books from Southern Cooking going back to '87 were dogs and set out a whole box of them. When I came upon them a lady was pawing through them and I was thinking, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon already!" and "Don't you know if you take a single one of those, thousands in some African nation will starve to death," and so forth. It must have worked, because finally she turned her nose up at them all and left. I scooped up the whole box. Close call. I have a bunch of those I bought at the Goodwill warehouse for 50 cents each, and, if any of the free ones are dupes, if my family members don't want them, I'll take them to the FOTL at my branch.
I can't refuse a cookbook, including the less-polished publications put together by clubs, church groups, and the like. Some of the cookbooks set out are actually the instruction manuals that come with crock pots, roasters, and other kitchen appliances. If you find an used kitchen appliance somewhere and there is no instruction manual with it, IT'S BECAUSE I HAVE IT!
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Red
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Post by Red on Oct 20, 2018 3:37:03 GMT -5
I just hope there's still gonna be a place for traditional books. Let's fact it, what do ya do when ya can't recharge your battery or when your reader dies??? Eighteen years ago when we moved abroad the first time, I gave away thousands of books from our family library. There wasn't any room or budget to ship 60+ boxes of books internationally, although I managed to do that for a couple hundreds of my favourite books. I switched to ebooks and audiobooks at that time as it was a more practical way to take them along in our travel or relocations to far-flung lands.
Then we moved overseas again last year, and the 250+ favourite books that I had transported back and forth between continents for almost a decade are now sitting in our daughter's garage. I still rely on ebooks and audiobooks for my fix no matter in which part of the world we live.
For us, "can't recharge the battery" isn't an option because a great many things we use must be plugged in or recharged regularly -- cell phones, laptop, iPad, Kindle, cameras, toothbrushes, flashlights, etc. If there's electricity, we recharge. If there's a prolonged power outage, we have portable chargers in my bag at all time.
PS: My Kindle has yet to give me any problems, but my iPod died a few years ago and took with it hundreds of audiobooks. I still have plenty of ebooks and audiobooks in cloud storage, ebook software, and external HD, no matter what happens to the device. I cannot live without books so Plan B, C, and D are always in place.
A great majority of people cannot live without cars, and and a great many others need TV or social media in their lives. We have none of those, but I always have books. Not the traditional printed books anymore, but they're still books.
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bbro2018
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Post by bbro2018 on Dec 10, 2018 16:38:42 GMT -5
I just hope there's still gonna be a place for traditional books. Let's fact it, what do ya do when ya can't recharge your battery or when your reader dies??? Eighteen years ago when we moved abroad the first time, I gave away thousands of books from our family library. There wasn't any room or budget to ship 60+ boxes of books internationally, although I managed to do that for a couple hundreds of my favourite books. I switched to ebooks and audiobooks at that time as it was a more practical way to take them along in our travel or relocations to far-flung lands.
Then we moved overseas again last year, and the 250+ favourite books that I had transported back and forth between continents for almost a decade are now sitting in our daughter's garage. I still rely on ebooks and audiobooks for my fix no matter in which part of the world we live.
For us, "can't recharge the battery" isn't an option because a great many things we use must be plugged in or recharged regularly -- cell phones, laptop, iPad, Kindle, cameras, toothbrushes, flashlights, etc. If there's electricity, we recharge. If there's a prolonged power outage, we have portable chargers in my bag at all time.
PS: My Kindle has yet to give me any problems, but my iPod died a few years ago and took with it hundreds of audiobooks. I still have plenty of ebooks and audiobooks in cloud storage, ebook software, and external HD, no matter what happens to the device. I cannot live without books so Plan B, C, and D are always in place.
A great majority of people cannot live without cars, and and a great many others need TV or social media in their lives. We have none of those, but I always have books. Not the traditional printed books anymore, but they're still books.
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bbro2018
Full Member
Discovering that getting your kicks is tricky at 66!
Posts: 235
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Post by bbro2018 on Dec 10, 2018 16:41:52 GMT -5
Good argument, red. Thanks for presenting the other side of the coin. (Tried it to post it at the end of your reply and it wouldn't let me do it.) Enjoy the trip, man!
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