The Unwanted

 
For the past four years Bucknucks has had an arrangement with the Garden House Foundation for our surplus books.  More information can be found here: http://gardenhousefoundation.wordpress.com/ but for this article, isuffice it to say that they are the kind folks who run the Book Sale at Bonner School every year.
 
From their website:
“Each year in October the foundation hosts a charity book sale to raise funds that are added to the principle funds of the foundation. Grants from those funds are provided each year to charitable organizations recognized by Revenue Canada. So far, the foundation has given annual grants to the Duncan SPCA, Duncan Family Life and Cowichan Women Against Violence. Grants from the fund will be given in perpetuity”
 
Once a week they would come and take away that which we had too much of, or did not want. They would sift through the recycling, and come up with something that could help charities. Also I would accept boxes from people and give straight to them. Kind of a pick up and drop off delivery type service. It seemed to be a pretty good win-win type of service. The retired couple who run the foundation work very hard, and I am sure that through their hard work, the foundation has improved the lives of many people (and animals) in the Cowichan Valley. They deserve any accolades that come their way.
 
It turns out that there were just too many books to go through, and the laws of supply and demand have come into play and they no longer need to come to the store every week and pick up since they have too many books for two people to sift through. Alas, they have informed me that they are no longer interested in my surplus inventory, and I will have to look after it on my own.
 
It's an understandable development. With the emergence of cheap novels in the sixties and seventies, there is bound to be a surplus of old (and unwanted) novels from that era as more estates are liquidated fifty years later. Of the 14 boxes a week that we donate, I would estimate that 10 of the boxes are completely unsellable garbage. Books with broken spines, encyclopedias that somehow sneak past the staff, old library books, outdated novels that noone wants, books with pages missing. They do not have value.
 
It leaves us with a new question to answer. What do we do with the books we do not want? Anyone who has been in the store lately can see that we have a space problem. The most likely solution is setting up with a recycler and just going that way.  I get too many books through here to be overly selective in my discard process, and donating to competitors isn't wise in any event. Realistically I know that I don't have the time or space to mess around with books I am trying to unload.
 
In the meantime, I will be trying to give discards back to you. You can donate or recycle at your leisure, but until I come up with a better solution that is what is going to happen. In order to allow me to do this, I am going to put a two box/bag cap on incoming books.