What Media Does Give My Books Network Collect in San Francisco?

Give My Books Network collects DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, VHS tapes, vinyl records, audiobooks on disc, and video games from any San Francisco address a Local Pick-Up Partner serves, alongside books of every kind.

• DVDs and Blu-rays, box sets included
• CDs, including the jewel cases with the cracked hinges
• Vinyl records, singles and LPs
• VHS tapes, which still have an audience
• Audiobooks on disc and video games

Books can ride in the same boxes. No sorting is needed at any stage, because your partner sorts it all offsite after collection.

Do Local Pick-Up Partners Really Take Vinyl?

Yes, and vinyl is one of the items partners are gladdest to see. Records still find buyers and listeners in San Francisco, and a crate that has sat in a flat in the Haight for a decade has a genuine second life ahead of it.

Pack records upright, like files in a drawer, rather than stacked flat. A stack of LPs under its own weight for a week will warp, and a warped record is a sad thing that nobody can rescue.

How Does a Media Donation Pick Up Work in San Francisco?

Pack, book by ZIP code, set out by 8 AM, and a Local Pick-Up Partner collects between 8 AM and 8 PM. The collection is free, and nobody needs to be home for it.

1. Pack discs and records into boxes or totes. The donor packs; your partner does not bring boxes.
2. Enter your ZIP code and choose a service day. No partner on your block yet? Submit anyway and the request enters the out-of-area pickup system.
3. Leave the boxes at street level, in the garage or the vestibule, by 8 AM.
4. Leave a 3-click review afterward. Ratings are how partners earn a Top Giver badge.

What Condition Do Discs and Records Need to Be In?

Playable. A disc with light surface scratches is fine; a disc snapped in half is not. A record with a scuffed sleeve still plays perfectly well, and a warped or cracked one does not.

Cases are welcome but not required. A DVD in a paper sleeve is still a DVD. What cannot be passed forward is anything cracked, snapped, or mold-damaged, and no amount of sorting changes that.

How Should You Pack Media for the San Francisco Damp?

Keep it dry and keep it covered. Damp is the enemy of paper sleeves, cardboard box sets, and record jackets in San Francisco, and the marine layer alone can do the damage without a drop of rain falling.

• Use a plastic tote if you have one, especially between November and March.
• Put a lid or a bag over any cardboard box left in a garage or on a step.
• Stand records upright and keep them out of direct sun.
• A tuck-under garage is the best staging spot. The top of the front steps, under cover, is the next best.

Where Do Donated DVDs, CDs, and Records Go?

Your Local Pick-Up Partner sorts everything offsite. Many items are redistributed to libraries, senior centers, community centers, and organizations that request media through the Give ME Books program. Some are resold by the partner.

That resale funds the van, the fuel, and the sorting hours, which is why the collection costs you nothing. Media that cannot find a listener may eventually be recycled as a last resort. The American Library Association's guide to book and media donation programs describes the same space limits that lead libraries to decline most media donations outright.

What Does a Media Pickup Cost in San Francisco?

Nothing at all. Give My Books Network charges no collection fee, no per-box charge, and no minimum for media donations in San Francisco.

Two boxes of DVDs from a flat off Valencia Street is a real pickup. So is a crate of records and forty CDs from a place in the Mission. There is no tax receipt, though: Give My Books Network and its Local Pick-Up Partners are family businesses rather than 501(c)(3) nonprofits.