Still Other Problems at Libraries

[spork]

Is there a way to specify what can/should be donated to exclude the detritus (e.g., someone's lifetime collection of National Geographic)? This won't solve the problem of keeping the For Sale shelf stocked, but would eliminate the hassle of taking someone else's garbage to the dump.

I don't know if there's a connection, but I have noticed a huge decline in my ability to sell used books on eBay. The bottom has dropped out of the market; it's simply not worth my while to list a book at a price that will net me a dollar when others are selling the same book for one cent. We have a used book store in town, but it only buys books for resale that are in specific categories.

For those who are wondering, yes, I do donate books, but often to Savers or Goodwill, because my university and local public libraries generally don't want them (unpopular topics, I guess).

[apl68]

Is there a way to specify what can/should be donated to exclude the detritus (e.g., someone's lifetime collection of National Geographic)? This won't solve the problem of keeping the For Sale shelf stocked, but would eliminate the hassle of taking someone else's garbage to the dump.

I don't know....  I've tried, and I can't seem to come up with a simple wording that's either too vague ("gently used" books, or some such), or so specific it might discourage donations altogether.  Donations are usually a mixed bag of useful and not useful.  We accept responsibility for the work needed to sort them.  What's gotten to me is just how attenuated the useful part has become.  I keep hoping that if we wait we'll eventually see a reversion to the mean, and start getting more good material again.

[spork]

[...]

What's gotten to me is just how attenuated the useful part has become.

[...]

Do you think this is a sign of a general decline in how frequently people read print books?

[jimbogumbo]

I think it's more the case of the tons of old folks around. My siblings and I are now in charge of a house with at least 6 floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books acquired over close to 90  years. I can guarantee no one wants them.

[apl68]

I think it's more the case of the tons of old folks around. My siblings and I are now in charge of a house with at least 6 floor to ceiling bookcases filled with books acquired over close to 90  years. I can guarantee no one wants them.

That's my guess.  I think we've had a higher proportion than usual of legacy estate dumps, as opposed to current readers bringing in their surplus.  Heirs, who are mostly not readers themselves but still find it vaguely improper to just dump books, are bringing us their unwanted inheritances.  It's still unusual just how many extraordinarily poor and deteriorated collections we've been getting in recent months.  It's like most of them were left in a shut-up, vacant house for years and years before a decision was finally made to do something with them.

Re the decline in print books:  What I've mainly noticed is a decline in mass-market paperback romances.  It's striking how few of those we've gotten in recent years.  They used to be enormously popular, both in the library and in the book sale room.  We've gone from having them cover most of one wall in the sale room to only a few shelves.  And we're having trouble keeping those stocked.  Other mass-market paperback genres have also declined, to a lesser extent.  I've read speculation somewhere that readers of mass-market romances are especially prone to reading in e-formats now, because reading them on an e-reader avoids the stigma of being caught with a romance paperback.

[lightning]

This is a rather minor issue in the big scheme of things, but it has really hit here in recent months:

Like many public libraries, we get book donations.  We salvage what we can for our ongoing Friends of the Library book sale.  Most of what we get is not anything we can use--it's too old or worn-out or unattractive to have much chance of selling, even at thrift-store prices.  Most of it wouldn't even be candidates for recycling, had we a place to do so nearby.  But we take all donations that are offered, separating the wheat from the chaff to keep our book sale stocked.

For some reason, this year has been by far the worst year for donations I've seen in my two decades of public library service.  The volume has been substantial.  But scarcely any of it has been anything we can use.  I just went through a dozen large boxes in our latest donation, and found only an armload of material we might use.  At least this material wasn't filthy and nasty, as if it had been found in a long-abandoned house or left in a garage for a decade or more.  We've gotten an exceptional number of large donations of that sort of garbage in recent months.  But it still might as well have been hauled straight to the landfill.

I had supposed earlier in the year that we were just going through an unusually bad patch with respect to donations.  But we're now most of the way through the year, and it's still like this.  We're having a hard time keeping the shelves in our book sale room stocked with plausible-looking merchandise in several categories. 

The Boomer colleagues at my place, who have retired or are on the cusp of retirement, dump their LP, cassette, and CD collections on the library.

So, at least you are dealing with print books, which suffer only from being unwanted content, unlike LPs, cassettes, and CDs, which are unusable content.

Of course, the library graciously accepts the unusable musical media, and quietly disposes all of it, a few months after the Boomer retires, if not sooner.

I need to make a point in that donating a music collection that has been amassed over a lifetime (and this purchased music is usually an expression of self), mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.

A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.

So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.

 

[AmLitHist]

Those legacy collections might be gold to an English or American Studies grad student. 

I used to haunt the two big charity book sales here every year and would find all sorts of once-popular books, things like du Maurier and Christie and Westerns, but also complete collections of lesser-known authors from the early/mid 20th C. A couple of fellow grad students got several conference papers and articles out of those kinds of finds.

Maybe I'll go back to combing the sales for those things. (As a fan of film noir, one of my goals in retirement is to find and read as many of the source materials as possible. James M. Cain, early Raymond Chandler, and Leslie Charteris, here I come!)

[apl68]

This is a rather minor issue in the big scheme of things, but it has really hit here in recent months:

Like many public libraries, we get book donations.  We salvage what we can for our ongoing Friends of the Library book sale.  Most of what we get is not anything we can use--it's too old or worn-out or unattractive to have much chance of selling, even at thrift-store prices.  Most of it wouldn't even be candidates for recycling, had we a place to do so nearby.  But we take all donations that are offered, separating the wheat from the chaff to keep our book sale stocked.

For some reason, this year has been by far the worst year for donations I've seen in my two decades of public library service.  The volume has been substantial.  But scarcely any of it has been anything we can use.  I just went through a dozen large boxes in our latest donation, and found only an armload of material we might use.  At least this material wasn't filthy and nasty, as if it had been found in a long-abandoned house or left in a garage for a decade or more.  We've gotten an exceptional number of large donations of that sort of garbage in recent months.  But it still might as well have been hauled straight to the landfill.

I had supposed earlier in the year that we were just going through an unusually bad patch with respect to donations.  But we're now most of the way through the year, and it's still like this.  We're having a hard time keeping the shelves in our book sale room stocked with plausible-looking merchandise in several categories. 

The Boomer colleagues at my place, who have retired or are on the cusp of retirement, dump their LP, cassette, and CD collections on the library.

So, at least you are dealing with print books, which suffer only from being unwanted content, unlike LPs, cassettes, and CDs, which are unusable content.

Of course, the library graciously accepts the unusable musical media, and quietly disposes all of it, a few months after the Boomer retires, if not sooner.

I need to make a point in that donating a music collection that has been amassed over a lifetime (and this purchased music is usually an expression of self), mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.

A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.

So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.

 

That's one argument for a liberal donation acceptance policy, all right.  Especially when it's the actual collector donating the collection, not an indifferent heir just trying to get rid of it.  I usually think about the public service of salvaging still-usable material and offering it for sale for a nominal price.  Our book sale room is the closest thing to an actual bookstore for 40-50 miles in any direction.  If you want to browse an actual collection of books for sale--and a lot of readers still do--we're it for this area.

Here we've never received donations of vinyl, and not a lot of other audio formats.  We did get a lot of books on CD a few years back, most of which eventually sold.  Now and then we'll still get videos on DVD.  It's been a little while since we got a large batch of VHS tapes.  I think most of the VHS tapes in town came here to die over the years.  People would actually take them from the free table for a surprisingly long time.  Now you literally can't give them away.

[apl68]

Those legacy collections might be gold to an English or American Studies grad student. 

I used to haunt the two big charity book sales here every year and would find all sorts of once-popular books, things like du Maurier and Christie and Westerns, but also complete collections of lesser-known authors from the early/mid 20th C. A couple of fellow grad students got several conference papers and articles out of those kinds of finds.

Maybe I'll go back to combing the sales for those things. (As a fan of film noir, one of my goals in retirement is to find and read as many of the source materials as possible. James M. Cain, early Raymond Chandler, and Leslie Charteris, here I come!)

I'm that kind of buyer too.  I've bought quite a few now-obscure works from the 1950s and earlier that caught my eye over the years.  I'm currently reading an early (1905) work by Booth Tarkington that I found on vacation only a few months ago.  I've now and then found books that old Hollywood movies were based on, like Grand Hotel and A Yank in the RAF.  And other forgotten stuff that I, at least, find interesting from an historical perspective.

Most of the old books we get aren't anybody's idea of vintage.  They're just plain old.  Now and then I'll try putting something older that still looks presentable in the book sale room, but not much of it ever sells.  I think somewhere in our mystery section we've still got a copy of Little Caesar--yes, the one the 1930 Edward G. Robinson movie was based on--that nobody has ever snatched up.

Only minutes ago somebody brought in a batch of Reader's Digest Condensed Books.  Talk about stuff you can't give away!  I recall looking on a web site for one of those "books by the foot" dealers that sell to non-readers wanting to fill their shelves for decor purposes.  Condensed Books were the very lowest-priced grade that they offered.  The staff member who accepted the donation diplomatically told the donor that nice, clean Condensed Books were sometimes bought by crafters wanting to use them for material.  Honestly, though, I doubt we're going to find a buyer for these.

[jimbogumbo]

I would note that in the family situation I mentioned we are all prolific readers. I have batches of already combed through materials (complete O Henry, complete Rover Boys, complete Chip Hilton plus others) in boxes trying to figure out the best way to sell/donate them. Not a lot of good options.

[spork]

[...]

mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.

A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.

So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.

 

This might sound mean, but that's not my intent.

I think this practice of equating one's self-identity with the material possessions that one has amassed over the years is a particularly American disease. I don't see why libraries should be expected to function as social workers/garbage collectors. People need to stop acquiring so much stuff.

[kaysixteen]

apl, you mean there isn't even a *Christian* bookstore within 40-50 miles of your town?   Exactly how many people in your community take out books from your library, and how many even have a library card?

[apl68]

apl, you mean there isn't even a *Christian* bookstore within 40-50 miles of your town?  Exactly how many people in your community take out books from your library, and how many even have a library card?

Nope.  There's a small, locally-owned bookstore in a larger town about an hour away in one direction, and a large chain store in a smallish city about an hour away in another direction.  We're the largest settlement for thirty miles around, and we're nearly an hour from the nearest college town.  Unless you count the local vo-tech school.  We probably have a couple thousand library card holders, of which a few hundred are regularly or semi-regularly active at any given time. 

Readership has declined considerably here over the years.  Some of it is population decline, due to economic decline.  Local employers have cut hundreds of jobs in recent years--we just recently had another plant shutdown.  At one time we had a very high level of readership for a mostly blue-collar town, due to a large influx of educated engineers and managers who settled in town to work at our main employer during the postwar era.  They were the backbone of our civic life for many years.  Getting this large, modern library facility built some years ago, before I came here, was one of their major achievements.

Now that generation has mostly passed from the scene.  Their children all moved away long ago to find work compatible with their education, leaving behind their less-academic classmates who just took jobs at the mill.  The main employer still brings in educated engineers and managers, but they consider living in a small town beneath them and mostly live near bigger places to raise their families and commute.  We've struggled for years to form partnerships with local schools to help raise a new generation of readers.  We were finally seeing some success there, when COVID pulled the rug out from under everything.  Now you see very few children around the library, and meanwhile school achievement scores are way down.  Think there might be a correlation there?  We're still trying to convince school admins to stop ignoring this community resource that could help them to fix things.  A large portion of our business is now print, photocopy, and fax service.  Which are still important, especially in a community where nobody else provides such services.

Plant shutdowns and declining population have hit our local tax base hard, just as our now-aging facility has been demanding heavy spending on repairs.  This is our third year of running a structural deficit.  We've still got a lot of money banked from our good years to act as a cushion.  But we can't afford to keep up this expensive library building forever.  Eventually we'll either have to lay people off, and have a largely empty building run by a skeleton crew, or maybe find some way to downsize into a smaller vacant building. 

We've had hardly any of the culture war issues involving libraries that have made all the headlines.  Our challenges come down to a declining community, shrinking tax base, and growing apathy among the younger generations.  Libraries elsewhere in the state where populations are growing are booming.  We're not them.  When I first came here, almost two decades ago, I had visions of what we could potentially make this library and its resources into.  But most of it hasn't worked, and now the resources are slipping away.  I guess my career will end up being mostly a matter of helping this library and community to die slowly with dignity.  Not the legacy I'd hoped for. 

The greedy "one percent" that leaves nothing for everybody else isn't just a matter of individuals.  It applies to communities as well.  A few favored cities here and there have sucked all the rest of the nation dry.

[apl68]

[...]

mitigates the feeling of loss, when a retiring colleague donates their obsolete musical media on the library. When someone who came of age before the age of streaming musical media, parts with their physical music collection, they are in essence parting with their sense of self. It's why they still hung onto their LPs & cassettes, even when they switched over to streaming subscription services.

A library who accepts this donated musical media gives the retiring Boomer a sense of permanence to their identity and self.

So, a library who accepts donations of stuff, are providing a social service, even if they quietly throw away the entire donation.

 

This might sound mean, but that's not my intent.

I think this practice of equating one's self-identity with the material possessions that one has amassed over the years is a particularly American disease. I don't see why libraries should be expected to function as social workers/garbage collectors. People need to stop acquiring so much stuff.

No arguments here.  I try to limit my accumulation of books by donating items I've read to either our library book sale, or to a library-run free book exchange in a large town that I pass through several times a year.  Drop off some good nonfiction or decent-condition older fiction in small batches in one of those, and they'll generally find takers.  I know they're finding takers, because stuff that people don't take is allowed to sit around indefinitely, and the stuff I bring them usually disappears pretty quickly.

That said...over the years I have accumulated quite a few shelves of books--not enough to overrun the house, but more than most people would have.  I don't see anybody likely wanting most of them when my time comes.  Maybe I'll eventually find some way to downsize gradually.

[spork]

[...]

Some of it is population decline, due to economic decline.  Local employers have cut hundreds of jobs in recent years--we just recently had another plant shutdown.  At one time we had a very high level of readership for a mostly blue-collar town, due to a large influx of educated engineers and managers who settled in town to work at our main employer during the postwar era.  They were the backbone of our civic life for many years.

[...]

If you haven't read The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, by George Packer, you should. It does not provide any answers, but it's an excellent account of what you describe.

A few years after completing my PhD, I contacted an R1 university library about some books I had used for my dissertation. They were written in a language that was native to ~ 80 million. The university had an existing collection of books in this language, and also offered courses on it. The librarian who responded said yes, we would love to get these books, so I packed them up in a box and shipped them.