Spring Clean your books off your shelf and into our booksale! by Stacy



Too Many Books?  We would love to help!!!



It’s Spring!  Spring means it’s time to clean.  And it is the time for our Spring Booksale!  So get started unstacking your overflowing shelves and think about getting rid of some of those books!  You can help the library by filling our sale tables, while making room for all the books YOU buy at the sale.

This is too many books.

For some people (like me, the people I work with and most anyone who uses the library), getting rid of books is hard.  Books are very personal.  They say something about us or at least something about who we were at some point in our lives.  But, too many books simply say one thing about us: we’re hoarders!  Here are a few tips to help you clear out your shelves and provide a huge benefit to the Stillwater community.

Also too many.

1.      Start by removing the books you never really liked.  Harry Potter?  Despite popular sentiment, I didn’t like this series—so out they go, on to make some other person happy.

2.      After that, cull the reference type items with dated information—the ones you kept purely for info—travel books, health books, etc.  This means getting rid of the items definitely ten years and older, but preferably anything over 5 years.

3.      Now, go to the books on your past interests and hobbies.  It is OKAY that you once thought you’d be an expert birder or thought you’d learn Latin, but it never took—it happens to us all.

4.      Next, remove books where you have several on the same subjects.  You may have once needed 8 books on flower gardens, but you can probably get by with 2 or 3.

5.      Then, pull the books you think you SHOULD read—Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” “The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel,” etc.  Yes, we all squirrel away these books on the off chance that we will finally give in to the nagging urge to improve ourselves, but honestly, if the urge hasn’t taken in the amount of time you’ve owned the book, then it probably just isn’t.  AND when the urge finally DOES strike, then just visit us and we’ll lend you a copy!

6.      Now, comes the hard part—the books you love for sentimental reasons.  Books that you read as a child, ones you read to your children and ones that a beloved friend or family member gave you.  These are the hardest books to remove, but there are several good strategies.

·        For books your children loved, chose 2 or 3 of the best or favorite books.  Then, put your time and effort into keeping those books safe and pristine.

·        If you have inscribed books, consider carefully removing inscription pages and putting them into a scrapbook. 

·        For other books you hold dear, consider taking a photo of the covers. Include those in your scrapbook as well and take the time to write down why the book was important to you.  Your thoughts about the book are way more important than the book itself.

If you are having a hard time, have someone else sort through the items for you, then come along afterward and make the final decisions.  This helps by removing the emotions from the decisions and it helps you view the situation more objectively.

Definitely too many-but very cool!

Once you have made your final decisions, the rest is easy!  Bring all of your items to the library.  Call us in advance or come in and let us know if you need help unloading your car.  We have carts to make it easy.  We also can provide a tax receipt, so you can benefit from your donation.  Then!  Be prepared to refill your shelves at our booksale April 19-22!

Stillwater, OK