No, seriously, we don't want any more books.

Our annual book sale is just over a week away. We've been collecting book donations for it since last September. Throughout the year, the donations come in and are hauled to the basement where Mrs. B periodically sorts them into categories and boxes them up to be moved to our storage facility in a local city-owned building.

While we're very grateful for all the donations made throughout the year, toward the end of July we begin really talking up the book sale in an effort to let our patrons know that if they were planning to donate books they should put some ass into it and get it done cause there WILL be a cut off date. This year that date was last Sunday, August 15, after which we put up lots of signs saying we weren't accepting any more book donations until September 15. Not that this has stopped people from bringing them anyway.

Most insistent book donators are turned away with a kind "Thank you very much, but we're no longer accepting books until September 15." They may not like it, but they do go away. One in particular, however, was not so easily disuaded. She phoned us up on Tuesday to ask if she could bring in her books. Mrs. B told her, sorry, no, but we stopped taking books on the 15th.

"But that was Sunday!" the woman said.

"Yes, it was," Mrs. B replied.

Within an hour or two the lady from the phone drove up outside and began unloading boxes. Mrs. B told the woman we really weren't accepting any more books, but the lady insisted on continuing to unload her boxes, stacking them neatly by the front door. Throughout the stacking, Mrs. B continued to tell the woman that No, seriously, we're not accepting any more book donations. You have to take these boxes away. Didn't stop the lady. Didn't even slow her down. She just kept stacking, not saying a word. It seemed nothing short of physical violence was going to stop her, and Mrs. B, having recently had surgery, was in no condition to dish any out. Then, when she'd deposited the tenth box onto the pile, she looked Mrs. B in the eye and said, "You should be grateful for these books." She then got in her car and drove off.

It may seem strange that we would be at all ungrateful for books to benefit our library or that we would have a cut off date at all, but it is absolutely necessary to the process. For one thing, it's very difficult to organize the books you already have when more keep getting dumped on the pile. For another, we're never NEEEEEVER gonna sell all of them anyway. We'd be dancing in the streets if we could sell half of what we usually have. It just doesn't happen, though.

Our booksale is always well attended, but when the number of books we have on sale outnumbers the population of the entire county and only a fraction of that population shows up to the sale, there are going to be lots of books left unsold. At the end of the day, all those unsold books will have to be boxed up again and hauled back onto the rental truck. Then they take a ride to see their new friend Mr. City Garbage Truck where they are compacted into book mush and eventually deposited into a landfill.

(*FEELS THE OVERWHELMING CRIES OF ANGUISH FROM BOOKLOVING READERS ACROSS THE EARTH*)

That's right, we throw them away.

It sounds brutal and horrible and I completely understand if you think we're all a bunch of inhuman monsters at this point, but stay with me cause I'm going somewhere with all this.

I was spared having to see the fate of the leftover books during my first year working the sale. I could live in my little fantasy world in which all those books were taken back to the book-orphanage that is our storage shed to await another chance at happiness in a new home come next year. (Picture scenes from Cider House Rules, only starring books instead of Dewey from Malcolm In The Middle.) Last year, however, they made me go help load the boxes into the garbage truck and I had to do some real soul searching.

I'm still pretty conflicted about seeing books destroyed in this manner. There's just something about a book, no matter how useless it may be to me personally or to the rest of humanity (*COUGH* *COUGH*ROBINCOOK*COUGH*), that grants it inherent value and twists at my soul to see destroyed. However, after much thought, I came to the conclusion (rationalization) that throwing away all those books was not the high crime it might seem on the surface. In fact, it is a valuable community service.

See, the public and patrons in general don't want to see books thrown away any more than we do. In lieu of throwing their own books away, which would be unthinkable, they bring them to us in the belief that their gift will be used for a greater purpose. Either we'll add their books to our collection (the ultimate honor) or we'll sell them in the booksale and the funds will go toward keeping the library running (still pretty honorable). Both of those possibilities MAY be true for any given book. Odds being what they are, however, it is also nearly as likely that their book will be among the leftovers we chunk. Doesn't really matter in either case, though. Our valuable service is that the library becomes the one unloaded rifle in the firing squad that allows each rifleman to sleep at night in the belief that they didn't actually kill anyone. We throw books no one wants away so that average citizens don't have to and don't feel anguished over having done so.

I also realized that what we do is not actually destroying books, at least not in the larger sense. We're merely destroying copies of certain books. Those books still exist out there in the world with plenty of other copies, we've just removed one or two of them from circulation. It happens.

("Oh, yeah? Well if EVERYONE did that then ALL copies of books would be destroyed!" someone out there just said in knee-jerk reaction. Yes, that is true. If everyone destroyed all their book copies then the books would be destroyed. And when and if that happens, we can start making a big deal about it. Since it isn't, and since most of what we destroy are people's old unwanted Chicken Soup for the Asshole's Soul copies and ratty 200th printings of John Grisham, I'm gonna be cool about it.)

On Wednesday, Mrs. C printed out a gigantic banner that reads "WE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING BOOK DONATIONS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 17!!!" and plastered it across the outside of our front door. Already it has stopped several well-meaning donors in their tracks coming up the front walk.

The good news, however, is that we have also discovered an alternate donation site. One of the libraries in a nearby county was shut down a couple of years ago due to not being able to sustain itself financially. That community has now rallied together, though, and they are about to reopen that branch and are in dire need of books. So now we're sending latecomers their way and may be able to unload a few orphans of our own there after the sale.

D-MINUS: 14