free or discounted books?

[manateegirl95]

www.swaptree.com You can trade books and movies there so maybe that is what they do??

[ashleywalker33]

www.bookcrossing.co m is pretty cool.

[Lunapooka]

I also used to work for Borders.  The thing that no one has mentioned is that taking those cover-less books out of the dumpster is illegal.  It is considered theft.  It is stupid and senseless, but it is the truth.  Because the book store is getting credited from the publisher, the book has not been paid for.  That's why book store dumpsters are usually locked behind 8 foot fences.  Just know that diving these dumpsters is decidedly more risky.

I worked in the cafe, when we were slow they would put me on strip-the-magazine duty and I HATED it.  I felt like I was killing the Earth with every rip and tear.

:-(

On the upside, when they remodeled the store, they threw out some nice bookshelves and let the employees take them on a first come, first serve basis.  Somehow, I single-handedly fit three of them into the back of my hatchback.  They were the perfect size for storing CDs, DVDs or paperbacks.

If you know a store is remodeling, watch the dumpsters closely.

[wenwengirl]

Our local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store has a monthly book sale - $2.00 per bag, they are regular plastic grocery bags, but I can easily fit about 10 books in them.  Cheaper than Goodwill or even garage sales, where books are at least 25 cents each!

[glass_slipper]

In L.A., there is a small chain of $1 bookstores - I think they buy books (used and remainders) from auctioneers/wholesalers for pennies per pound.

Reading some of the posts about throwing away the books - ridiculous. No wonder we have such a problem with waste in this country.

[katie-bee]

I can't believe book stores throw the books away.  I get that the book hasn't been paid for, meaning that the author and publisher lose out if someone takes it instead of buying it, but you'd think that they would at least recycle the paper!  It makes this English major sad. I mean, I want to make some cool projects from books, but I can't even bring myself to tear up a volume for that purpose.  Books are a wonderful thing and should not be tossed so wastefully.

[SoftFlexGuy]

I love books and I hope they would at least recycle the ones that did not sell.

But, I can also understand why they would sequester the ones that were pulled and not make them available to the public - if we all knew that a book would be public domain if it did not sell, we could all just wait out the selling period and get it for free.

Eventually the profitability of book selling would make people question why they were doing it in the first place and we would lose future writers that sought other avenues of revenue.

But I really hope that some good does come from tearing a cover off and I hope that in the end it finds a recycling plant that can repurpose the book and not just be a total waste.

[Because.Fashion.Sucks]

In response to the books having the covers ripped off and thrown in the dumpster: Does anyone know if there has every been a petition started for this practice to be change? If there hasn't been one we should try to start one. I have no clue who we would need to get involved (as far as companies, organizations, etc.), but I think it is worth a shot. I am a book lover and this makes me really sad, especially since there are children in other countries that don't know how to read because they can't go to school and can't even afford to have books in their homes. I get so mad when people throw things away, but the throwing away of books is the like the ultimate unforgivable act in my mind. My mom recently saved a book for me out of a dumpster at the elementary school that she works at, she said that the dumpster was half full with brand new text books but she didn't dig them out because they were covered in food (from the cafeteria, that's where my mom works) and all wet and nasty. This is not the first time my mom has seen this, she has worked at two different schools in the past ten or so years and numerous times she has found boxes full of text books in the dumpsters. She digs them out when she can, but most of the time they are already ruined from garbage that has been thrown on top of them.
And also I just saw a notice at my local library that said that California might close lots of library branches due to lack of funding. This is another thing that is extremely tragic.
Okay I really need to stop now because I am about to burst from anger.