[kelnos]

Yeah, this part of the article made me sad:

> a state university’s property, even if it’s been deemed trash, cannot be transferred to private individuals.

What a waste! Sure, allowing something like this could (and probably would) be abused, but I think the waste is worse.

I'm glad your middle school was able to do what they did!

[eutropia]

I wonder if they could have transferred it to a separate nonprofit, and then that nonprofit has no restrictions on whom it is transferred or sold to?

[e15ctr0n]

Many libraries have a Friends organization that receives books culled from the library's collections. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_Libraries

The Friends are a separate nonprofit from the library, usually run by volunteers. They can also accept donations from the public, keeping books out of dumpsters. They organize regular book sales which are generally popular with the reading public. https://action.everylibrary.org/from_book_sales_to_big_impac...

If you think that books should be kept out of the landfill or the shredder, please consider starting a Friends group for your local library. https://www.ala.org/united/friends

National Friends of Libraries Week is usually the third week of October every year. https://www.ala.org/united/events_conferences/folweek

[cwmoore]

One trick state legislatures hate!

[ghaff]

My local town library has a book sale every fall and you can take away a paper bag of books for $10. It's not practical for every small library, in particular, to hold onto every book forever.

[themaninthedark]

They don't have surplus sales?

I know the universe I went to did. Price it all at a penny each.

[etempleton]

Even libraries that go to the trouble of doing this throw away probably a thousand books for every one they can sell.

[pfdietz]

That depends on the structure and scale of the sale. Our local library sells most of the books at the biannual sales. Granted, many of those sell for very little; prices decline over several weeks so the things discarded wouldn't sell even for pennies.

[fhn]

they do and it's usually an auction but at a penny each is not worth the time to even post it. Also, not many people are buying old books unless they are collectibles. So more than just books go straight into the dump.