What Media Does Give My Books Network Collect in Baltimore?

Give My Books Network collects most physical media alongside books, at no cost, from any Baltimore doorstep a Local Pick-Up Partner serves.

• DVDs, Blu-rays, and box sets
• CDs and audiobooks on disc
• Vinyl records, LPs and 45s
• VHS tapes
• Video games and console titles
• Board games and puzzles

Cases can be scratched. Sleeves can be worn soft at the corners. What does not work is a disc cracked through or a record warped into a taco by a hot attic.

Can You Donate Vinyl Records in Baltimore?

Yes. Give My Books Network accepts vinyl, and a Local Pick-Up Partner will collect a crate of it from your stoop free of charge, alongside whatever books are going out the same day.

Vinyl is one of the categories where resale genuinely matters. A crate that has sat in a Hampden rowhouse since the Carter administration can fund a partner's whole week of collections, and that is what keeps the pickup free for everybody else on the block.

How Should You Pack DVDs, CDs, and Records?

Pack discs flat in small, sturdy boxes and stand records upright on their edges. Never stack records flat under weight.

1. Records go vertical, like books on a shelf. Flat stacks warp.
2. Keep record boxes small. A full crate of LPs is a serious weight.
3. DVDs and CDs can go loose in a box with books. No sorting required.
4. Keep media out of a damp basement in the days before pickup. Humidity fogs cases and buckles sleeves.
5. Set everything at the door by 8 AM, covered if rain is in the forecast.

Do Media Donations Have to Be Separated From Books?

Media donations do not need to be separated from books. DVDs, CDs, records, and paperbacks can all ride in the same box, and a Local Pick-Up Partner sorts everything offsite after collection.

'Should the vinyl go in its own crate?' Only if that makes it easier to carry. 'Do VHS tapes need their own box?' They do not. Sorting is the partner's job, and they are quick at it.

What Happens to Donated Media After a Baltimore Pickup?

Local Pick-Up Partners sort media offsite and split it several ways. Some moves through the Give ME Books program to libraries, senior centers, and community programs that requested it. Some is resold through shops, community sales, and online listings.

Media that cannot find a second life may eventually be recycled as a last resort. Nobody promises otherwise. The American Library Association's Book Donation Programs reference is a useful read on why institutions are so selective about media in particular.

Where Media Donations Fit on a Hampden Rowhouse Block

A crate of records and four boxes of DVDs will not fit in most cars, and there is nowhere on the Avenue to park while you carry them in. That is the whole case for a doorstep collection.

Hampden and Station North are full of homes with a shelf of media nobody has touched in years. Boxes on the marble stoop by 8 AM. Gone by 8 PM. You do not need to be home, and it costs nothing.