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Things People Love Donating to Libraries Other Than Books
Moral of the story: Please ask first
People love giving things to their local libraries. Items with a range of actual usefulness. Often after a big decluttering stint at home. The obvious item is old books, but as I’ve expressed before, they have their own caveats… But would you be surprised to find out that people try to donate a lot of other things to their local libraries as well?
But from the insider look of over a decade in library land, here are the other common things people like to offload onto libraries when spring cleaning comes around…
Old magazines
It's the most closely related to books on this list, but I’m splitting hairs here. Because magazines are serials, they often contain very time-relevant content and easily pile up in people’s homes. And suddenly, spring cleaning hits, or they are downsizing, or they discovered Marie Kondo. Whatever it is, someone wants to purge their home of their back pile of National Geographic, but they do not want to toss them in the recycling bin. What do they do? Call up their local library.
Sorry, we don’t want your old magazines. Yes, even if they are awesome, in good condition, National Geographics (the best of the magazines, arguably). Public libraries are not…
