What happens to old books when they die? Many would argue they don’t; books live forever and there is always a home for an old book! Believe me, you need not convince librarians of the sacred nature of books, however we do recognize that they are not immortal and may need to be retired in style or euthanized with dignity and respect. It can even be irresponsible to keep certain literature around, if it contains inaccurate medical or historical information, for instance. We do not want to teach kids that “someday ‘man’ will walk on the moon.”

We populate our stacks with carefully chosen selections, given that we have a finite amount of space in our beautiful historical building. As many of our regulars know, we receive brand new titles hot off the presses and scurry to make them available to borrowers ASAP. We cannot continually add the new without getting rid of anything, so, in gardening nomenclature, we “weed” our collection, just like you do in your own yards, closets, and bookshelves.

When downsizing, moving, or spring cleaning, many folks generously donate books to the library. Marie Kondo, author of the bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, claims to keep only about 30 volumes at any given time. While I cannot imagine reducing my collection this drastically, I do recommend culling the home collection to keep it fresh and interesting. The library gratefully accepts donations, albeit with some caveats. If you want to get rid of something because it smells moldy, has pages falling out, fell in a puddle, or has been too “well loved” by your child or dog, safely assume that we don’t want it either. Likewise, we will say “thanks, but no thanks,” to decades-old encyclopedia sets, multi-year runs of National Geographic magazines, and those old-school Time-Life reference series.

Please note when bringing us gifts: the majority of materials donated to the library do not actually end up on our shelves. We consider collection development to be an art and a science, and our librarians work diligently to curate a collection that best serves our community. We aim to provide relevant and up to date materials to support the interests, viewpoints and hobbies of the wide range of citizens in Norwood. In other words, our shelves are not populated by hand-me-downs. 

We have immense gratitude for donations though, as our Friends of the Norwood Library group sells most of them on our library sale carts and in bi-annual book sales to raise funds in support of our collections, programming, and activities. For amazing deals on reading, viewing and listening material check out our first floor sale carts anytime, or come to our first post-pandemic in-person book sale, happening from October 22nd to 24th.

In addition to the Friends’ book sales, the library collaborates with a couple of other entities to make sure that books get re-homed rather than discarded. BetterWorld Books accepts some of our de-accessioned and unsold books and even pays for packing boxes and shipping costs. A “triple bottom line” company, BWB maintains commitments to environmental and social impacts, rather than financial profit alone. Savitz and Weber describe this framework in their 2013 book, The Triple Bottom Line: How Today’s Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success. The company sells books online, and also donates them to hundreds of charity organizations, issues literacy-related grants, and uses environmentally sustainable practices. Furthermore, they donate a portion of the profits from sales of our items back to the Friends of the Norwood Library non-profit organization! Locally, Discover Books comes in person to collect boxes of books from the MML. The removal costs us nothing, and the company sells books and also gives them to literacy and community-based organizations nearby. As for anything beyond salvation, the MML, BWB and Discover all recycle, hoping to keep books out of landfills when their lifecycles comes to an end.

We love to see pre-owned books find new loving homes, but some creative types also experiment with “upcycling” them in fun and interesting ways. Upcycling Books by Julia Rubio shows how to make lampshades, decorations, baskets, and organizers by altering retired literature. In Playing With Books, Jason Thompson teaches how to make beads, boxes, and bags out of book pages, and also highlights fine artists who have made beautiful and intricate sculptures with this unusual medium. Explore Etsy, Pinterest, or our brand new Craftsy database to gain inspiration for countless book-based arts and crafts projects. In just a few months it will be time for our librarians to put together the MML’s annual Christmas tree made of books, decorated with handmade origami star ornaments, derived from colorful pages. Books may not live forever, but there is no shortage of options for extending their lifespans as long as possible.

Lydia Sampson is the Assistant Director at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for her article in the September 9, 2021 issue of the Transcript and Bulletin.