or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk


Stopping Unsolicited Scientology Books

   January 16th, 2013 Brian Herzog

Scientology books in my libraryA couple weeks ago, my library received the latest shipment of free Scientology books, and I'm guessing your library did too. On the whole, we never want these books, and rarely do they make it to our shelves (or even out of the boxes they came in).

So I was happy to see a post on the Maine Libraries listserv the following week (from Mamie Anthoine Ney of the Southern Maine Library District) detailing an email exchange she had with the company that sends them out. She asked them to stop sending them to her site, and this is the response she received:

Dear Ms Ney,

Thank you for message alerting me to this situation.

I have taken your address off the mailing list.

If you have not been able to send the books back yet, let me know the correct address, contact name and number and I can have my shipping department get FedEx to pick them up.

The books are very valuable and I do not want them to go to waste.

I will pick these up right away if you have not been able to arrange this.

Best regards,

Mr. Larry Perras
Library Distribution Manager
Bridge Publications
5600 E. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90022
(323) 888-6200

Mr. Perras' email is address is [email protected] and he is the person to contact if you'd like your library to stop getting these boxes of books. I forwarded this to my library's Head of Technical Services, and she was only too happy to email them to take us off the list (although we never got a reply from them).

Thank you Mamie for sharing this information - hopefully it will keep more of these books from ending up in dumpsters.



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Another Outlet for Used Books

   May 18th, 2007 Brian Herzog

Better World Books logoPicked up again from the Maine Libraries Listserv, here's another resource for an option with what to do with used books.

A website called Better world Books (http://www.betterworldbooks.com) recycles used, unwanted, weeded and discarded books. They pay for shipping, and either recycle donations or use them to raise money for both libraries and non-profit literacy initiatives in the U.S. and other countries.

beterworldbooks.com, better world books, betterworldbooks, books, discarded, discarded books, discards, discards books, literacy programs, unwanted, unwanted books, used books, weeded, weeded books, what to do with used books



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