[permaculture] book saving

Marimike6 at cs.com Marimike6 at cs.com
Sat Dec 8 20:09:42 EST 2007


It seems like everything we create as a society gets produced in great 
abundance. Certainly books are something we have in great abundance.

Our county library held a book sale several weeks ago. They filled a vacant 
K-Mart the size of a WalMart Superstore with tables stacked with books, and 
held a four day blowout. People were all over them like a swarm of locusts.

I was there the day before the end of the sale. There were still tens of 
thousands of books left. And they were good ones. Many like new, many in perfect 
condition, many hard to find. A complete Shakespeare, for instance, was one 
dollar. The Apocrypha to the Bible, not easy to find... two bucks.

Library policy at the end of the sale is to shred what's left, turning them 
into mulch. They don't give them away. I think it's something about swamping 
the second hand book market.

Next year they will have that many books again, or more. Each year is usually 
bigger than the last.

So many trees devoted to these unread books... But on the other hand, many 
get read. On the last day of the sale you can bring home a shopping bag for $3 
or a large box for $5.   



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