Handling a Large Book Collection in Chicago

How Do I Handle a Large Book Collection in Chicago?

Handle a large Chicago book collection in waves: count the shelves, decide what stays, pack a shelf a night into small boxes, and schedule as many free Give My Books Network pickups as it takes.

1. Count the shelves and estimate the total before you touch a box.
2. Pull out the books that are genuinely staying. Do that first, and do it once.
3. Pack a shelf a night into small boxes, twenty to thirty books each.
4. Stage the packed boxes somewhere out of the way and let them accumulate.
5. Schedule a pickup when you have a load, then keep going.

Nine hundred books is not a chore. It is a project, and it will beat you if you treat it like a Saturday.

Count First. Do Not Sort.

Get a number before you do anything else. Walk the shelves and estimate: a standard three-foot shelf holds roughly twenty-five to thirty-five books depending on thickness, so multiply the shelves rather than counting the spines.

Most people who believe they have "a few hundred" are sitting on twelve hundred. Knowing the number changes the whole plan. It tells you how many boxes to find, how many trips down the stairs there are, and whether this is one pickup or three.

Deciding What Stays Is the Only Hard Part

Everything else in this guide is moving boxes around. The deciding is the actual work, and it is the only step nobody can do for you.

A frame that helps: instead of asking which books to let go, ask which ones earn their shelf. The ones you will genuinely reopen. The ones with an inscription. The ones that are the person rather than just the books. In a Hyde Park apartment holding a professor's library, that might be forty volumes out of two thousand, and forty is a wall you can live with.

Set those aside first. Then stop deciding and start packing.

Why the Stairs Are the Real Problem in Chicago

Chicago housing turns a large collection into a stairs problem. A three-flat means a narrow back staircase with a turn at the landing. A greystone means a half-flight up from the sidewalk before you even reach the door. A basement library means every box comes up before it goes out.

Which is exactly why the boxes have to be small. You pack the books, since a Local Pick-Up Partner does not bring boxes, so reach for banker's boxes and liquor store boxes rather than big moving cartons. Twenty to thirty books each. If a box feels too heavy, split it into two smaller ones. Your back and the person carrying them both come out ahead.

How Many Pickups Does a Large Collection Need?

Two or three service days is completely normal for a collection of a thousand books or more. There is no per-box charge, no cap, and nothing awkward about scheduling a second pickup a week after the first.

Do not attempt twelve hundred books in one weekend. Pack a shelf a night, stage the finished boxes in a spare room or on the back porch, and book a Give My Books Network pickup when you have a load. Then keep going. It is far easier than one heroic push that ends with you sitting on the stairs at eleven at night.

What Happens to a Large Chicago Collection After Pickup?

Local Pick-Up Partners sort every large Chicago collection offsite after pickup. Many items are redistributed to readers, schools, libraries, nonprofits and organizations that request books through the Give ME Books program. Some are resold by the partner to help sustain the free pickup service.

Large collections are the interesting ones. They have range: the academic titles, the languages, the technical books, the fiction somebody actually read to the end. Items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort. Nobody can promise where a specific volume lands, and you should be suspicious of anyone who tries. The American Library Association's guidance on book donations is candid about the same limitation.

When the Books Belonged to Someone You Loved

Take your time, because most large Chicago collections are a parent's library or a professor's library, and this is not really about the books.

Go through them once for the inscriptions and the letters people used as bookmarks, because there is almost always something. Keep what holds a memory. Then let the rest continue their journey, which is very likely what the person who collected them would have wanted. A library that goes back out into the city, into a classroom, onto a table at a sale near Jackson Park, into a stranger's hands, is a better ending than a basement.

Give My Books Network pickups run 8 AM to 8 PM on your service day and you do not need to be home. If a partner serves your ZIP code, you can book instantly. If not, your request enters the out-of-area pickup system, where nearby partners may claim it. There is no cost, no matter how many boxes there turn out to be.

Or browse all Chicago donation services including Community Book-Sharing Program, Large Quantity Book Pickup, Video Game Donation Pickup.