--- title: "What to Do With Old Books You No Longer Want | Chicago" description: "Six honest Chicago options for old books in 2026: keep, gift, sell, Little Free Library, branch sale or free doorstep pickup. Which one fits your pile." lang: en json-ld: | [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "@id": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com/#organization", "name": "Give My Books Network", "legalName": "Book Sourcing Mastery, LLC", "url": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com", "logo": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com/social-card.jpg", "image": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com/social-card.jpg", "description": "Give My Books Network is a nationwide United States network of local Pick-Up Partners who collect used books, textbooks, CDs and DVDs for free directly from the donor's door, resell what is sellable and rehome the rest to schools, libraries, shelters and nonprofits.", "foundingDate": "2022", "telephone": "+1-855-506-8633", "email": "support@givemybooksnetwork.com", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "2091 Stratton Ct.", "addressLocality": "Ann Arbor", "addressRegion": "MI", "postalCode": "48108", "addressCountry": "US" }, "contactPoint": { "@type": "ContactPoint", "telephone": "+1-855-506-8633", "contactType": "customer service", "email": "support@givemybooksnetwork.com", "availableLanguage": "English" }, "sameAs": [ "https://www.facebook.com/givemybooksnetwork", "https://www.instagram.com/givemybooksnetwork", "https://twitter.com/givemybooks" ], "areaServed": { "@type": "Country", "name": "United States" } }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Organization", "name": "Give My Books Network", "legalName": "Book Sourcing Mastery, LLC", "url": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com", "logo": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com/social-card.jpg", "image": "https://givemybooksnetwork.com/social-card.jpg", "description": "Give My Books Network provides free door-to-door book donation pickup services across the United States. 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Which one fits your pile. Schedule Free Pickup ![A stylized city skyline at golden hour with books in the foreground](/assets/city-scene-fallback-yglTcFEu.jpg) Chicago, IL # What to Do With Old Books You No Longer Want: Chicago, 2026 **Quick answer:** Old books in Chicago have six honest destinations in 2026: keep the ones you will reread, hand some to a neighbor, sell the few with real value, feed a Little Free Library, carry a bag to a library branch or school sale, or schedule a free doorstep pickup with Give My Books Network. Pile size decides which one fits. ## What Should You Do With Old Books in Chicago? Six real options exist in Chicago, ranked below by how much of your Saturday each one costs. None of them are wrong, and the right one depends on how many books you have and how much effort you feel like spending on them. Where to donate books is really a question about volume. Twenty books and four hundred books are different problems with different answers, and most people try to solve the second one with a method built for the first. ## Option 1: Keep the Ones That Earn Their Shelf Start by pulling out the core, because it is free and it takes ten minutes. Most collections have twenty or thirty books you will genuinely open again, buried inside a hundred you will not. What is left is the actual question, and it is a smaller question than it looked five minutes ago. ## Option 2: Hand Them to Someone Who Will Read Them Giving books directly to people you know is the most satisfying option and the one with the lowest ceiling. Friends. Neighbors. The family across the courtyard in your Uptown building. The kid on the second floor who just discovered chapter books and is going through them at an alarming rate. It works beautifully for ten books. It does not work for four hundred. ## Option 3: Sell the Few That Are Worth Selling Selling makes sense for recent nonfiction, current textbooks, technical titles and anything genuinely collectible. Everything else will sit in a listing for months. Count the cost honestly. Photographing, listing, packing and mailing one book takes fifteen or twenty minutes. If it sells for four dollars and postage is three, you did all that for a dollar. For a small number of valuable books, selling is smart. For a hundred paperbacks, it is a part-time job you did not apply for. ## Option 4: Feed a Little Free Library Little Free Libraries take five books at a time, not fifty. Chicago has thousands of them and they are one of the better things about living here, but each one holds maybe twenty books and turns over slowly. A box left on the ground beside one is not a donation, it is a chore for whoever maintains it. Look at what is already inside and add what is missing. ## Option 5: A Chicago Library Branch or School Sale Chicago Public Library branches accept donations at some locations, usually in limited quantities, and Friends groups sell what the branch cannot add to its own shelves. School and church sales work the same way, and the money stays in the neighborhood along with the books. The catch is the trip and the limits. Branches have finite space and they will tell you so. Call ahead. The [American Library Association's book donation guide](https://libguides.ala.org/book-donations) explains why libraries have to be selective, and it is worth understanding before you load a car. ## Option 6: Free Doorstep Pickup Across Chicago Give My Books Network collects donated books and media free from any Chicago doorstep, which makes it the easiest option on this list and the right one for anything over two boxes. That does not automatically make it the best one for everybody. You pack books and media into boxes or bags, well packed and not too heavy, because a Local Pick-Up Partner does not bring boxes. Set them out starting at 8 AM in a dry spot. The window runs 8 AM to 8 PM and you do not need to be home. ### Where to Donate Books You No Longer Want Give My Books Network accepts books, textbooks, children's books, DVDs, CDs, vinyl, VHS, audiobooks, board games, puzzles and video games, with no sorting and no drop-off. 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. Items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort. ## Which Chicago Option Fits Your Pile? Pile size decides the option in Chicago, and the split is simple. - **Under twenty books:** hand them to someone, or feed a Little Free Library a few at a time. - **Twenty to a hundred, with a car and a free morning:** a branch sale or a school sale. - **A handful of genuinely valuable titles:** sell those yourself and pass the rest forward. - **More than you can carry, or no car at all:** schedule a free doorstep pickup. More than you can carry, and it is January, and the wind is coming off Lake Michigan sideways, and the thought of loading a car in Avondale makes you want to close this page? Schedule the pickup. Give My Books Network charges nothing regardless of the number of boxes. If a partner serves your ZIP code, you can book a service day instantly. If not, your request enters the out-of-area pickup system, where nearby partners may claim it. ### Ready to schedule your free Chicago book pickup? We'll come to your door — no cost, no hassle. Book pickup, DVD pickup, large-quantity, estate, and more in Chicago, IL. Schedule Free Pickup Or browse all Chicago donation services including Community Book-Sharing Program , Large Quantity Book Pickup , Video Game Donation Pickup . If you'd rather see all your choices side by side before booking anything, start with our national guide to [where to donate books](/where-to-donate-books) — it covers what each option takes and what it turns away. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Where can I donate books near me in Chicago? ### Is it worth selling my old books online? ### How many books can I put in a Little Free Library? ### Will my Chicago Public Library branch take a carload? ### What is the easiest option if I do not have a car? ### What happens to books that cannot find a reader? ## More from Chicago Learn More Where Chicago Books Go Learn More A Thousand Books, One Plan Learn More Pack It Right the First Time Service Community Book-Sharing Program in Chicago Service Large Quantity Book Pickup in Chicago Service Video Game Donation Pickup in Chicago Back to Chicago Donation Services ## Find us in Chicago Our local Pick-Up Partners serve the Chicago area. If your exact address is inside our service area, you can book a doorstep pickup today. Loading map of Chicago, IL… ## Ready to clear your shelves? Join thousands of Chicago neighbors who have already donated their books through the Network. Schedule Free Pickup ![Give My Books Network Logo](/assets/gmbn-logo-BsMIhLrP.png) **America's Nationwide Community Book-Sharing Network.** Free book and media pickup service! Local Pick-Up Partners collect your donated books, CDs, DVDs, and media right from your doorstep. 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