--- title: "Donate or Throw Away Old Books? A San Francisco Guide" description: "Donate old books or send them to a landfill? A San Francisco guide to mildew, damp Sunset garages, and the books people wrongly assume are worth nothing." 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. We collect books, textbooks, CDs, DVDs, and more – giving your items a second life while supporting literacy programs.", "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", "https://littlefreelibrary.org/book-resource/give-my-books-network-give-me-books-program/" ], "areaServed": { "@type": "Country", "name": "United States" } } ] --- Feedback ![Give My Books Network Logo](/assets/gmbn-logo-BsMIhLrP.png) - Learn More Schedule Pick-UpGive ME BooksBecome a Pick-Up Partner Sign In Home› San Francisco, CA› Learn More # Donate old books, or send them to a landfill? Donate old books or send them to a landfill? A San Francisco guide to mildew, damp Sunset garages, and the books people wrongly assume are worth nothing. Schedule Free Pickup ![A stylized city skyline at golden hour with books in the foreground](/assets/city-scene-fallback-yglTcFEu.jpg) San Francisco, CA # Donate or Send to a Landfill? Old Books in San Francisco **Quick answer:** Most old books in San Francisco should be donated, not sent to a landfill. Give My Books Network collects them free from your doorstep, and a Local Pick-Up Partner sorts them offsite. Only books that are mildewed, water-swollen, or missing pages are genuinely past saving. ## Should You Donate or Send Old Books to a Landfill in San Francisco? Old books in San Francisco should almost always be donated rather than sent to a landfill, and Give My Books Network collects them free from your doorstep, so the choice costs nothing but the packing. The books that truly belong in a landfill are a small and obvious category: mildewed, water-swollen, missing pages, or coming apart in your hands. Everything else is worth passing forward. A Local Pick-Up Partner is the locally owned family business that does the collecting and the sorting. Many items are redistributed through the Give ME Books program to schools, libraries, and literacy programs. Some are resold, and that resale is what keeps the pickup free. You do not have to judge the books yourself. That is the partner's job, and they are better at it. ## Which Old Books Are Genuinely Past Saving? Books that are mildewed, water-swollen, smoke-damaged, chewed, or missing pages are past saving, and no amount of sorting will bring them back. In San Francisco the damage is almost always damp rather than heat. A garage in the Sunset holds the marine layer for months at a stretch, and a box that sat on the concrete through a winter of atmospheric rivers comes out with swollen covers and that particular smell. If a book comes apart in your hands, it does not have a second life waiting for it. Items that cannot be reused may eventually be recycled as a last resort. ## Which Books Do People Wrongly Assume Are Worthless? Textbooks, encyclopedia sets, and book club editions are the three categories San Franciscans most often assume are worthless, and all three are worth donating. - **Textbooks** — even superseded editions. Tutoring programs, ESL classrooms, and prison literacy programs use them constantly. - **Encyclopedia sets** — a shop will decline them. A Local Pick-Up Partner will not. - **Book club editions** — smaller trim, cheaper board, perfectly readable. They fill shelves. - **Mass-market paperbacks read four times over** — the workhorses of every community sale. - **Cookbooks, manuals, and old reference** — steady sellers and steady givers. - **CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, vinyl, board games, puzzles, and video games** — all welcome in the same box. The [American Library Association's Book Donation Programs guide](https://libguides.ala.org/book-donations) explains why a library branch has to decline most of this. It is a shelf-space problem, not a value problem. ## Why a Damp Garage Ruins More Books Than Age Does Damp, not age, is what destroys books in San Francisco. A hundred-year-old hardcover kept dry is fine. A five-year-old paperback left in a foggy garage for one winter is not. People get this backwards constantly. They apologize for how old the books are, then hand over a box that has been sitting on a concrete floor in the Sunset since 2019. If you are storing books at all, get them off the concrete and put a lid on the box. If you are donating them, do it before the next atmospheric river rather than after. ## The San Francisco Decision, in Order Work through old books in four passes: keep, give directly, donate for free pickup, and send to a landfill only what is genuinely destroyed. 1. **Keep** — the ones you will actually open again. Be honest. The shelf is small. 2. **Give directly** — the specific book for the specific person. Do that one yourself. 3. **Donate** — everything else, in boxes, through a free pickup. No sorting required. 4. **Landfill** — only the mildewed, the swollen, and the fallen apart. Nine times out of ten, pile three is the biggest by a wide margin, and pile four fits in one bag. ## How to Donate Old Books in San Francisco Without a Drive Schedule a free pickup with Give My Books Network, pack the books yourself, and set them out by 8 AM in a dry, covered spot on your service day. A Local Pick-Up Partner collects between 8 AM and 8 PM, and you do not need to be home. Partners do not bring boxes and do not carry them down the interior staircase of a flat, so the trip down the stairs is yours. The rest is theirs. Driving four boxes across San Francisco costs an hour of circling for parking and a street-cleaning ticket if you time it wrong. The pickup costs nothing. One honest limit: Give My Books Network and its Local Pick-Up Partners are family businesses, not 501(c)(3) nonprofits, so no tax receipt is issued. ### Ready to schedule your free San Francisco book pickup? We'll come to your door — no cost, no hassle. Book pickup, DVD pickup, large-quantity, estate, and more in San Francisco, CA. Schedule Free Pickup Or browse all San Francisco donation services including Estate Book Pickup , Community Book-Sharing Program , Board Game and Puzzle Donation Pickup . Donating from outside San Francisco, CA, or just want the full picture first? Read our guide to [where to donate books](/where-to-donate-books) for a straight comparison of every option nationwide. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What should I do with books that have mildew? ### Are old textbooks worth donating in San Francisco? ### Will anyone take an encyclopedia set? ### Is it better to donate books or send them to a landfill? ### How do I know if a book is too damaged to donate? ### Do I need to sort my old books before pickup? ## More from San Francisco Learn More Best places to donate books in San Francisco in 2026 Learn More Handling a large book collection in San Francisco Learn More How to prepare books for donation in San Francisco Service Estate Book Pickup in San Francisco Service Community Book-Sharing Program in San Francisco Service Board Game and Puzzle Donation Pickup in San Francisco Back to San Francisco Donation Services ## Find us in San Francisco Our local Pick-Up Partners serve the San Francisco area. If your exact address is inside our service area, you can book a doorstep pickup today. Loading map of San Francisco, CA… ## Ready to clear your shelves? Join thousands of San Francisco 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. They resell to support their families and can donate through our Give ME Books program. #### Quick Links About UsWhere to Donate BooksGive ME BooksFor LibrariesPick-Up RequestBecome Pick-Up PartnerBecome an AffiliateFAQsContact Us #### Follow [](https://facebook.com/givemybooksnetwork)[](https://x.com/givemybooksnet)[](https://instagram.com/givemybooksnetwork) Privacy| Acceptable Use Policy| Disclaimer| Terms of Use| SMS Policy| [EntityMap](/entitymap.html "Structured entity index of this site for AI systems") © 2026 Give My Books Network, All rights reserved