Never Donate These Books to Little Free Libraries (or Anywhere Else)
Don’t donate books that are wildly out of date
Some books age better than others—and often, physical condition has nothing to do with it. Old information is useless at best and dangerous at worst, so think twice before offloading any outdated books. Here are the two main categories to watch out for.
Books with out-of-date information
Old reference materials are among the least valuable books you can donate; textbooks, technical manuals, how-to guides, and travel guides from years past just aren’t going to be very helpful to anyone who picks them up. Enthusiasts or collectors might be interested, but they have to find the book first—which they can’t do if the donations manager at the library or Goodwill (correctly) declines to put your Y2K survival guides or chemistry textbook from 2004 on the shelf.
A slightly more niche example of outdated books is an ARC, or advanced reader copy. These are basically early, unofficial book drafts publishers send out before publication day for reviewing purposes. Because ARCs are not the final version of a book, they may have typos, grammatical errors, and other small issues that the writer and editor will change before sending the manuscript to print. For this reason, libraries don’t accept ARC donations, so if you’re sitting on a pile of them, don’t box them up and send them to your local library.
Bigoted or otherwise harmful content
Maybe this goes without saying, but if you want to offload a book specifically because it’s racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, fatphobic, or just plain nasty, maybe don’t put it back out into the word. This is especially important if you’re planning on donating to your neighborhood Little Free Library; LFLs are often geared towards kids and families, and the less bigotry kids absorb, the better.