How do I decide which books to give away?

[Whisperlily]

I have too many books... I love books. The books I need to sort right now are mainly childrens books. I have readers of all stages here, and I love having plenty for them to grab and read, but they are stored in boxes in the garage. We don't have enough shelving to keep them accessible, and it's not practical for us to get any more.

I've got everything from early readers, science books, historical fiction, just plain fun fiction, chapter books, classics... you name it.

I'm having a hard time with this, and I'm tempted just to keep them, even if they are in boxes in the garage... But I want to be reasonable about things.

How on earth do I choose? Books have individual personalities to me, they are friends... how do I choose which friend to give away? ;)

[Janna]

I'll take them ALL of them off your hands. I'll be a good friend to them, I promise! They won't even know you gave them away, I'll treat them so well. :)

[babybryte]

(sigh) This is my dilemma at our house, too!! I just keep buying more bookshelves....Luckily, right now, we have room for them. But my Wish Lists at PaperBack Swap and BookMooch is in the hundreds!! Yikes!!

One thing I am going to do is list what I have on Library Thing, to help me figure out what all I have. Hopefully this will help me see what area I have an over-abundance of and what area I could beef up.

Jacquelyn

[In The Great White North]

I keep:

Old series books (Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, etc whose newer version are dumbed down)

Historical fiction and biographies, that aren't commonly in libraries or aren't politically correct

I have been collecting Landmarks for awhile and have no intention of parting with them.

And, last but not least, my personal favs

Do you have an attic? The garage might get damp and then they'd smell musty.

I did give a box of picture books to my sister, with the caveat that I want them back. She doesn't have dc yet, so she'll probably store them for years for me. Maybe even til I have grandchildren and want them back.:001_smile:

[TFJ]

This is my dilemma at our house, too!! I just keep buying more bookshelves....Luckily, right now, we have room for them. But my Wish Lists at PaperBack Swap and BookMooch is in the hundreds!! Yikes!!


I am here, too, well without anywhere close to enough bookshelves! What is BookMooch? Should I be worried...:001_huh:

TFJ

[Plaid Dad]

There was a thread recently about decluttering books. Here's one (http://67.202.21.157/forums/showthread.php?t=35386&highlight=refer+library) and here's another (http://67.202.21.157/forums/showthread.php?t=14185&highlight=refer+library) from a few months back.

The way I've gone about serious book purging in the past is to designate a certain number of shelves per person. You could also do this by category: pre-reader, early reader, fluent reader, adult. Then go through everything you have and weed out any duplicates, seriously damaged books, or twaddle. I would also take into consideration how frequently the books are read and whether they are readily available at your public library.

Then choose which books to keep. The trick is that what you keep must fit on the designated shelves. If the books don't all fit, you have to get rid of some more. Keep at it until everything is either on the appropriate shelf or in a box to be donated to the library for their book sale (or whatever charity you prefer). This may take a while - months, even, if there's a lot of emotional "tug" to keep more than you really have space for.

I'm not saying this is easy, but if you go at it from the perspective of deciding what to keep rather than what to give away, it can be a more positive experience. I ask myself "if we had to move and could only take one small moving box full of books for each person, would this title make the cut?" Our real parameters are more generous than that, but the question helped me clarify my priorities for our home library.

HTH!

[Deece in MN]

I have too many books... I love books. The books I need to sort right now are mainly childrens books. I have readers of all stages here, and I love having plenty for them to grab and read, but they are stored in boxes in the garage. We don't have enough shelving to keep them accessible, and it's not practical for us to get any more.

I've got everything from early readers, science books, historical fiction, just plain fun fiction, chapter books, classics... you name it.

I'm having a hard time with this, and I'm tempted just to keep them, even if they are in boxes in the garage... But I want to be reasonable about things.

How on earth do I choose? Books have individual personalities to me, they are friends... how do I choose which friend to give away? ;)

I hear ya! We live in a small house and when we moved in we had more boxes of books than the rest of our household stuff combined. I had to admit that we were just plain out of space.

I did a major purge of books. We still have lots more than most people (not the ladies and gents here I am sure :)), but we purged hundreds of books in a short time.

First, we kept all books that were given as gifts especially if they were personalized by the gift giver.

Second, each child has a large bookshelf in their room and they could go through all the books and keep what they wanted on their shelves.

Third, I kept my favorites. These are the books that I read and re-read because I just love them.

Fourth, I kept 2 shelves of books that have been on my to read list for a while.

Fifth, I kept reference books that are used or would be useful in our schooling and in everyday situations.

The main criteria for purging was if I could get it from the library, it was gone. Also books my dc outgrew that were not gifts were purged (I bought lots of books used to have for unit studies, free reading, etc. so these were mostly what we got rid of).

I sold hundreds of them at my mom's garage sales. We donated hundreds of them to Salvation Army and Goodwill. I sold a bunch to other homeschoolers and gave a bunch away. I still have 4 totes in our garage that need to be taken care of and 4 or 5 piles in the house.

It was so hard to get started on this project. I would make piles to get rid of and then I would look at the piles and be like "oh, I like this book and we might need it again" or "maybe I should have dd try to read this again, she may like it this time" or whatever. Next thing I knew they were all back on the shelf.

I do love books and I still buy way more than we really need. I realized that we just had too many and my dc like going to the library so I hardened my heart, boxed them up without looking twice and moved them out.

Sorry for rambling. Do you think it would be good for your dc to help decide? I found that when I asked my dc, they had less attachment to some books than I did and that made it easier to get rid of some of them.

[E_Edgerton]

I am absolutely of no use to you on this issue! I love books. I love having them around me, in all the rooms of the house. They are my only extravagance. Maybe just get another bookshelf! :lol: