Does Anyone Still Want DVDs and CDs?

Yes, and more than you would guess. Discs move steadily through the Give My Books Network year after year, because the organizations requesting through the Give ME Books program use them constantly.

Senior centers want DVDs, and they want a lot of them. Libraries still circulate discs. ESL classrooms use audiobooks on disc constantly. Community centers program movie afternoons and cannot stream them. Meanwhile vinyl has done the thing nobody predicted and become genuinely sought after again.

The DVD tower survived four moves. Its luck has finally run out. You are not passing along something obsolete. You are passing forward something with a real second life ahead of it.

What Media Does Give My Books Network Collect in Chicago?

Give My Books Network collects nearly every physical format still in circulation, and all of it can share a box with your books.

• DVDs and Blu-rays, including box sets and TV seasons
• CDs, single discs and full albums
• Audiobooks on disc, including multi-disc sets
• Vinyl records, LPs and 45s
• VHS tapes
• Video games and consoles, across generations

There is no need to sort media from books, or discs from records. Local Pick-Up Partners sort everything offsite after collection.

Cases, Sleeves, and Scratches: What Still Works

Keep discs in cases if you have them, because a DVD rattling loose in a box will pick up scratches from its neighbors before it gets to the end of the block.

If the cases disappeared two apartments ago, paper sleeves work. Even a rubber band around a stack is better than nothing. Light surface scratches are usually fine. A disc with a visible gouge across the data side probably is not. Cracked cases are not a deal-breaker, since a case is a case.

What cannot be used is anything with mold on the sleeve or the liner notes, which is a real risk if the collection has been in a Chicago basement through a wet spring. Check the bottom of the stack before you tape the lid.

How Should I Pack Vinyl Records?

Upright, never flat. Weight is what warps a record, and a box of LPs lying flat under three boxes of hardcovers arrives in a state nobody wants.

Pack them vertically in a sturdy box, snug enough that they do not slide, and mark the box so it does not end up at the bottom of the pile. Heat warps them too, which matters more on a sun-facing porch in a humid August than people expect. Set the box out the morning of, not the day before.

How Do I Schedule a Media and Book Donation Pick Up in Chicago?

Enter your ZIP code and choose a service day. If a Local Pick-Up Partner serves your ZIP, you can book immediately. If not, the request enters the out-of-area pickup system, where nearby partners may claim it.

You pack the media. The Local Pick-Up Partner does not bring boxes. Boxes or sturdy bags, well packed and not too heavy, because a box of CDs in jewel cases gets heavy quickly and there is no prize for filling it to the brim.

The window is 8 AM to 8 PM and you do not need to be home. Set everything in a safe, dry spot starting at 8 AM. In Lincoln Square and Jefferson Park, the covered back porch and the garage side door off the alley both work well. Wherever you choose, keep it out of the snow, because a soaked cardboard box full of discs is a bad morning for everyone.

Where Media Goes After a Chicago Pickup

Local Pick-Up Partners sort everything at their own workspace. Many items are redistributed to readers, schools, libraries, nonprofits, and organizations that request books and media through the Give ME Books program. Some are resold by the partner, which is what sustains the free service, and media is a category where resale does real work.

Items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort. Libraries have thought hard about which donated formats they can actually circulate, and the American Library Association's Book Donation Programs guide covers the reasoning if you are curious.

Box the discs, tape the lid, pick a day. That tower on Milwaukee Avenue is not going to empty itself.