Support the library with used book donations

For the past few weeks, I’ve been putting off something that I need to do. I need to clean out my bookshelves, getting rid of books I have no intention of reading and books I read but didn’t really enjoy.

While I already know some of the books I plan to purge, I have a hard time doing it. I’ve done it several times, and it’s always difficult.

I grew up without a lot of money, and so aquiring things was not easy to come by. I had two shelves of books in my childhood home. Some were given to me, likely from used book sales, and some were books from the library that were damaged after I took them camping with me and my tent flooded.

I read those books so many times the pages began to separate from the cover, stains accumulated on the paper and spines cracked from overuse.

I still have several of these, including my Treasury of Illustrated Classics version of “Anne of Green Gables.”

When I got into college, I found the Friends of the Library book sale in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, supporting the L.E. Phillips Memorial Library.

Though the sale was open Friday through Sunday, I always opted to go Sunday because you would get a bag to fill with books for just $5. I accumulated many books through this strategy. Many of them, I read. I was able to get the entire collection of my favorite series at the time — “Vampire Academy” by Richelle Mead. If you know, you know. Those books made my love for reading flare in high school.

I also found books that I never ended up reading. Still, they stayed with me. I had aquired them, after all. They were mine.

When we moved to Creston, I had a small brown bookshelf filled with books. Some of them, I had purchased new after college as I discovered the “Throne of Glass” series by Sarah J. Maas, going on to read her other two series as well. But most of them had the library sticker on them from a used book sale. Those sales allowed me to create a collection at the level I could afford. I treasured all of my books.

Over the years, I went from the brown book shelf to two tall white shelves from Home Depot. Then to three, four and now to five shelves.

I haven’t counted my books recently, but I have a lot. Most of them I have purchased from either Barnes and Noble, Half-Priced Books or independent bookstores like The Latest Edition in Creston. Some I have grabbed from the used book sale site here at the Creston News Advertiser. The sale is put on by the Friends of the Gibson Memorial Library.

While the sale is free-will donation, I really encourage people to donate what they can. Many of these books cost between $20 and $30 new and are just lightly used.

I often see people selling their lightly used books on Facebook Marketplace for low sums. If the money is needed, I totally understand selling them. But if you’re in a good space financially, I highly recommend donating your used books to the Friends of the Library used book sale.

It makes it easier for me to give up my books when I think of someone like me finding the book, taking it home, adding it to their collection and reading it.

Since I’ve been with the Friends of the Library (only a few months), the Friends have provided funds for the Summer Reading Program, a wellness program, a mural in the children’s section and so much more.

There are many projects the library needs to complete that cannot be done with just the funds received from the city. Some things like equipment repair, maintenance and replacement don’t help the library evolve, but are necessary to keep it running.

Libraries are a vital part of our community — one of the last spaces where people are welcome to access a plethora of materials regardless of financial status. At the library, everyone is wealthy; everyone is on the same playing field.

If you can’t donate financially, consider volunteering with the Friends or donating your used books. Books can be dropped off Monday through Friday at the side entrance of the CNA, 503 W. Adams St., from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.