Whatever is crowding your bookshelves has a deadline. The Montclair Public Library is organizing a book drive, taking donations October 11 and 12.
Donated books go to a three-day sale, Oct. 22 to 24, in the Main Library auditorium. According to the library’s announcement, all proceeds go to library initiatives, including programming, summer reading and the portable Wi-Fi hot spots residents can borrow like books.
What the Montclair Public Library book drive accepts (and what it won’t)
The library takes gently used hardcovers and paperbacks for adults and children, fiction and nonfiction, in English and other languages. DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs and audiobook CDs are welcome too, as long as they arrive in their original printed jackets or cases.
The list of what to leave home is longer. Moldy or heavily underlined books, encyclopedias, textbooks, magazines, puzzles, board games, greeting cards and postcards all get turned away. So do AAA travel guides and maps, and Reader’s Digest Condensed books, the shortened editions of popular novels. Travel guides more than three or four years old are out, though the library makes an exception for much older ones. VHS tapes, music cassettes, 78 rpm records and homemade recordings are out as well.
The test is simple: Can the library sell it? Anything that passes goes into the sale.
Where do donated books go? Inside the Oct. 22 to 24 Montclair library book sale
The sale opens Thursday, October 22, from noon to 8 p.m. and continues Friday, October 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Prices are fixed. Coffee-table and art books cost $4. Adult hardcovers cost $3 and adult paperbacks $1. Mass-market paperbacks, the pocket-size editions, go two for $1. Children’s hardcovers cost $2 and children’s paperbacks go two for $1. DVDs, Blu-rays, audiobooks and CDs cost $2 each.
Saturday, October 24, is bag day. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., $10 fills a bag. At regular prices, $10 buys 10 adult paperbacks or three adult hardcovers with $1 left over.
When and where to donate books in Montclair
Drop donations at the downtown Main Library, 50 South Fullerton Ave., not the Bellevue Avenue Branch. Hours are Sunday, Oct. 11, from 1 to 6 p.m. and Monday, Oct. 12, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Want to do more than drop off? The library is looking for volunteers to help with collection, sorting and the sale itself. Sign up through the Friends of the Montclair Public Library at montclairlibrary.org/volunteer. Reach out to friends@montclairlibrary.org for questions.
Pull the stack off your shelf, get it to the Main Library by 6 p.m. Sunday or 3 p.m. Monday, then come back October 22 to 24 and take some home.
Graphic Credit: Montclair Public Library
