What to do with old textbooks? College

[KeypoX]

My GF and I saved a ton of text books. Mostly science and math. They all cost a ton, but now are only worth pennies on amazon, half, etc. What should i do with them? They are all an edition or 2 or 3 or 4 behind but as most know hardly anything changes. We prob have 30 or so 'worthless' books. From bio, physics, genetics, chem, calc etc etc

We have all of the info in digital sources now, what should we do with all these books? I asked local text book stores they want nothing to do with them.

 

[duragezic]

Recycle

Should have sold them for a few dollars (instead of the now few pennies) after the semesters were over.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Recycle

Should have sold them for a few dollars (instead of the now few pennies) after the semesters were over.

Only sell them online or through the campus paper. Never sell back to the on campus vampires at the end of the semester. Many used book stores will take used text books. I kept a number of textbooks. I believe the format of information in books is vastly superior to online forms because the online info is rarely a direct copy or PDF of the book. But, I am a hopeless bookworm.

 

[HybridSquirrel]

major: keep
minor: keep
interest: keep

rest: donate, sell back, recycle.

 

[IronWing]

Move. Then move again. Repeat process until you realize that you don't love those old books enough to move them again. Worked for me, eventually. :whiste:

 

[Imp]

Burn them... burn them all. Or give them to some unlucky poor nerds who would love the reading material.

I went back to school and am working in the field i studied in, so they occasionally come in handy. Just now, I had to blow another $165 (FML) on another book I'll be done with in 5 weeks, then never touch again. I'm tempted to use and return...

 

[the DRIZZLE]

I wish I had sold my engineering books when they were worth something. Now theyre probably two editions old and worthless. Maybe I'll donate them to a library or something.

 

[TheVrolok]

Donate them to a library, or just toss them out. As said as it is, I ended up just throwing tons of barely used textbooks out because I could not find a single person/place to take them. Such is the textbook industry; put out a new edition each year so that the previous year's edition is worth half as much, and any year prior is essentially a paperweight.

 

[Matthiasa]

Give eventual kids a head start in school?

 

[HybridSquirrel]

i wish i knew this sooner, but international editions of text books are super cheap...no chance of selling them back but they are superduper cheap

 

[Kirby]

Have a good old fashioned book burning.

 

[KeypoX]

i wish i knew this sooner, but international editions of text books are super cheap...no chance of selling them back but they are superduper cheap

some are international editions lol so even extra worthless

can i claim this donation on taxes?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Donate them to a local library. Monetarily, non-current edition textbooks are worthless.

 

[Leros]

Have a good old fashioned book burning.

Did this after high school, not doing it after college (those books were too expensive and are still potentially useful).

 

[HybridSquirrel]

some are international editions lol so even extra worthless

can i claim this donation on taxes?

as far as i know, yes. if they are worth anything to the people you donate them too.

 

[Jeff7]

Books you don't want, donate to the campus library, or else a local library. A lot of the new editions are done primarily to ensure a constant revenue stream for the publisher, and don't add much real value to the material, so there's still a lot of useful information to be found in them, even if it's not the absolute latest-and-greatest.

 

[Ronstang]

Shoot them with high powered rifles. It is fun and about the most use you will ever get out of many of them.

 

[KeypoX]

Move. Then move again. Repeat process until you realize that you don't love those old books enough to move them again. Worked for me, eventually. :whiste:

yeah at that point wish i sold them when they were worth something. I never bought from the book store or anything but still many still pushed near a 100.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Move. Then move again. Repeat process until you realize that you don't love those old books enough to move them again. Worked for me, eventually. :whiste:

I currently have half a VW Polo full of text books. They're a big pain to move, but not big enough for me to get rid of them I'll probably never get rid of my text books.

 

[rocadelpunk]

I'd be interested in buying some of them if you're willing to ship usps media mail : )

Do you have an actual list/could make one?

 

[Pollock]

This is motivation for me to sell some of my textbooks from last quarter while they are still worth $100+...and then buy them again for peanuts in a couple of years for reference.

 

[Sa7aN]

keep them in the trunk of your car incase you get send back in time like ash

 

[gophins72]

Donate them to a local library. Monetarily, non-current edition textbooks are worthless.

will the libraries take them if they are very old editions and monetarily worthless? anyone have any experiences with this?

 

[FleshLight]

Put them on Amazon. Sometimes they'll buy back some high demand books for 50% of retail.

 

[duragezic]

will the libraries take them if they are very old editions and monetarily worthless? anyone have any experiences with this?

They might. I worked at my university library for a bit and I recall seeing slightly older editions of books available for checkout that were the same book as I was using in a class. So maybe I was using the 6th ed for class and the library had the 2nd.

I generally borrowed from friends and bought online/international editions. I only ended up selling back a couple books. With the international editions, you can't sell them back except privately, but the sell back cost for a regular edition book is still so little that you get to keep the book and come out way ahead on money.

I have maybe 4 books left from school. It's good cause I don't have a pile of crap to lug around moving, and I know I didn't get screwed paying a ton for worthless books.