05 March 2022

Book Donation guidelines

Donations of Books and DVDs are vital to the Library !

Since opening in 2011, we have replaced most of the books we inherited with new or better quality copies. Many of these replacemements come from donations from the Community which saves precious resource in buying them.

Q- What condition of the books do you want? 

A - We are a library!  Donated books need to be of good quality to be useful.

Sadly a number of people seem to think we take anything and literally dump piles of old brown, even mouldy, books and run. We then have to don gloves, even masks,  and arrange to dispose of them at our cost.

The guideline is whether YOU  would borrow it! If in doubt please ask first !

Q -  When can I bring books? : 

A - You can bring books at any time we are open - no notice needed -  just call in advance 020 7431 1266 if you want to check we are open.

Q - What do you do with donated items ? 

A - We have a little team dedicated to sorting out all the donations.

Those for the library collection go on the shelves, others are kept for the next book sale and any that fail to sell are sent to an online seller. We aim make the most of every one in decent condition.

Q - What type of books? 

A- All TYPES and Genres of  book - (fiction or non fiction, adult or children) but please see below.   We  welcome DVDs as well as children's books which are well used in the library .

Q - Do you collect?

A - We would if we had willing volunteers!  At the moment, however, we cannot offer this service.

Please do NOT give us the following:

• Books without bar codes or ISBN numbers unless in pristine condition that we can sell.
  
• Books in poor condition, incomplete, dirty or mouldy ( you would be disappointed at the items sometimes dumped on us) .
  
• Encyclopedia sets and dictionaries - There is no longer any demand as it is all on the internet
  
• Magazines and catalogues.
  
• Outdated school text books
  
• Music scores
  
• Foreign language books
• Audio cassettes
• Video cassettes - VHS tapes
  
• Toys
• Clothes