How to Prepare Books for Donation: A Los Angeles Guide
Quick answer: Preparing books for donation in Los Angeles takes about twenty minutes. Pack them into sturdy boxes or doubled bags, keep each container light enough to carry alone, and set everything out by 8 AM in a shaded, dry spot. Give My Books Network sends a Local Pick-Up Partner between 8 AM and 8 PM, and you do not need to be home.
How Do You Prepare Books for Donation in Los Angeles?
Pack the books yourself, in advance — Give My Books Network Local Pick-Up Partners do not bring boxes, and they arrive to collect only what is already packed and waiting at the set-out spot.
- Find containers. Moving boxes, banker's boxes, plastic totes, or doubled grocery bags all work.
- Load light. Books are heavier than they look. Half-fill a large box rather than filling it.
- Skip the sorting. Hardcovers, paperbacks, textbooks, DVDs, CDs, and vinyl can all travel together.
- Pull the damaged ones. Mold, water swelling, and missing pages are the only real disqualifiers.
- Choose a shaded set-out spot. Direct Los Angeles sun on cardboard all afternoon does nobody any favors.
- Weight the top. A lid, a brick, or a tucked-in bag keeps a Santa Ana from redecorating your street.
- Set out by 8 AM on your service day. Collection runs from 8 AM to 8 PM.
What Should I Pack Books In?
Sturdy boxes, plastic totes, and doubled bags all work. Give My Books Network has no packaging requirement beyond one thing: whatever you use has to survive being lifted by a stranger and carried to a vehicle.
Old banker's boxes are ideal. Liquor store boxes are ideal. A single grocery bag holding thirty pounds of hardcovers is not, and it will let go halfway down the front steps.
How Heavy Should a Donation Box Be?
Light enough that one person can carry it alone, comfortably. Thirty to forty pounds is the practical ceiling, and a full large moving box of hardcovers can hit seventy, which nobody should be lifting.
Split the heavy ones. Two half-full boxes beat one that has to be dragged, and a hillside house with a long flight of stairs turns a single overloaded carton into a genuinely bad afternoon for somebody.
Where Should I Set the Boxes Out in Los Angeles?
Set them out in a shaded, dry, reachable spot by 8 AM — a covered porch, a carport, a side gate, the shadow of the garage. Los Angeles sun does more to a box in six hours than most people expect.
Reachable is the word that matters. If your Local Pick-Up Partner has to climb a locked gate or find a stairway that starts behind a hedge, the pickup gets harder than it needs to be. The carport under a dingbat apartment building is a perfect spot. So is the flat landing at the bottom of the stairs.
What About Santa Ana Winds?
Weight everything down, because a Santa Ana will lift a paper bag and shift a light box, turning an open carton of paperbacks into fifty paperbacks in the street.
Lids, tape, a brick, a folded towel across the top — any of it works. The same goes for the handful of hard rain days this city gets, which tend to arrive all at once. A tarp or a plastic sheet over the cardboard costs nothing and saves the box.
What If I Live Behind a Callbox or a Shared Entry?
Leave the boxes on the public side of the barrier, or add the gate code to your pickup notes. A Local Pick-Up Partner cannot buzz themselves through a callbox, and a locked lobby is where a lot of Los Angeles pickups stall.
For apartment dwellers, the mail alcove, the base of the stairs, or the strip beside the carport all work, as long as the boxes are visible from the sidewalk. If your building sits on a busy stretch where street parking is thin — anywhere near the 101, for instance — a quick note about the nearest legal spot is genuinely appreciated.
Do Los Angeles Donors Need to Sort Anything?
No sorting is required — hardcovers, paperbacks, children's books, textbooks, encyclopedias, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, vinyl, audiobooks, board games, puzzles, and video games can all travel in the same box.
Partners sort everything offsite. Many items are redistributed through the Give ME Books program to schools, libraries, and literacy programs, and some are resold, which is what keeps the pickup free. The American Library Association's Book Donation Programs guide is a good primer if you want to understand where donated books actually travel. Pack, set out, done.
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Not sure whether a pickup or a drop-off makes more sense for what you have? Our where to donate books guide walks through the decision honestly, including the cases where another organisation is the better fit.