How to Prepare Books for Donation: A San Francisco Guide
Quick answer: To prepare books for donation in San Francisco, pack them into sturdy boxes light enough to carry alone, bring them down to the door or the tuck-under garage yourself, cover them against the damp, and set them out by 8 AM. Give My Books Network collects free between 8 AM and 8 PM.
How Do You Prepare Books for Donation in San Francisco?
Preparing books for donation in San Francisco takes six steps, and Give My Books Network asks you to finish all six before the Local Pick-Up Partner arrives.
- Gather everything. Books, textbooks, children's books, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, vinyl, audiobooks, board games, puzzles, and video games all count.
- Pack into sturdy containers. Moving boxes, banker's boxes, plastic totes, or doubled grocery bags. Your partner does not bring boxes.
- Keep each container light. One person, one trip, no help. Split the heavy ones in two.
- Bring them down. The interior stairs of a flat are the donor's job, not the partner's.
- Cover them. A lid, a tarp, or a bag over the top. The rainy season does not negotiate.
- Set them out by 8 AM on your service day, at street level, in a dry and covered spot. Then get on with your morning.
A Local Pick-Up Partner is the locally owned family business that does the collecting. They arrive to collect what is already packed and waiting.
What Should You Pack Books In?
Pack books in moving boxes, banker's boxes, plastic totes, or doubled paper grocery bags, and skip anything with a soft bottom that will fail the moment it gets damp.
Plastic totes are the best choice in San Francisco, and the reason is the weather. Cardboard is fine indoors and fine in a dry garage. Cardboard on a wet step for two hours is a different object entirely.
Liquor-store boxes are the classic move because they are small, strong, and free for the asking. Small is exactly what you want here.
How Heavy Should a Box of Books Be?
Keep every box light enough for one person to carry down a flight of stairs alone, which in practice means twenty to thirty pounds rather than fifty.
Books are deceptively heavy. A banker's box packed solid with hardcovers is a genuinely difficult object, and you have to get it down the interior staircase before the Local Pick-Up Partner ever sees it.
Two half-full boxes beat one full one. Nobody at Give My Books Network is counting boxes.
Where to Set the Boxes in a San Francisco Flat
Set the boxes at street level in a dry, covered spot: the tuck-under garage, the entry inside the gate, the lobby by the callbox, or the top step under an overhang.
The San Francisco flat is a specific problem. Two or three units stacked, bay windows out front, a long interior staircase, and a garage at street level that everything has to pass through. The stairs are the whole story of a donation here.
If your building has a callbox, leave a note on the scheduling form about where the boxes will be. A partner working a street off 19th Avenue on a wet morning should not have to guess.
Do You Need to Sort or Clean the Books?
Donated books need no sorting and no cleaning before a San Francisco pickup. Hardcovers, paperbacks, textbooks, CDs, DVDs, vinyl, and video games can ride in the same box, and Local Pick-Up Partners sort everything offsite.
Should hardcovers be separated from paperbacks? No. Do children's books need their own bag? They do not. Does the box need a label? Only if it helps you.
The one thing worth doing is leaving out anything mildewed, water-swollen, or missing pages. Those cannot be resold or redistributed, and items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort.
What Happens After the San Francisco Pickup
A Local Pick-Up Partner sorts everything offsite after collection, redistributes many items through the Give ME Books program, and resells others to fund the free service.
Books go out to Title I schools, ESL classrooms, after-school tutoring programs, senior centers, shelters, prison literacy programs, and Little Free Libraries that have requested them. Some are resold at community sales and through independent shops, which is what pays for the vehicle and the hours.
The Book Donation Programs guide from the American Library Association explains why libraries cannot take most of what is offered to them, which is the gap Give My Books Network was built to fill. One honest limit: no tax receipt. These are family businesses, not 501(c)(3) nonprofits.
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Donating from outside San Francisco, CA, or just want the full picture first? Read our guide to where to donate books for a straight comparison of every option nationwide.