Why We Do What We Do

Every Library Has Items They Need to Weed

Steps for Dealing with Them

Every library has discardable books, rendered unacceptable for the collection by their age, redundancy, or condition, and the Friends of the New Braunfels (TX) Library stages a giant annual book sale to find homes for them all. In fact, besides hosting a thriving “collectible book” online business, they stage a smaller additional sale of children’s items as a Kick-Off for the Summer Reading Program each year, and maintain a small, working bookstore within the library itself, but after all these opportunities, there are still "orphans" remaining.

Recycle, Recycle, Recycle… All the Way to the End of the Line

After the BIG book sale, the Friends of the Library invites non-profit organizations to glean from what’s leftover. The FOL then crates up thousands of pounds of books to ship to a company that will buy them by the ton, but even that company refuses some publications, leaving us with rejects still. Since the residents of New Braunfels passionately LOVE their bargains from the annual book sale, they are careful to donate them back to the library when done. So the FOL sells them again and again, the most beloved of recycling projects in the city. The FOL tries to find “good homes” for all donations, preferably as a revenue stream (because libraries always have wish lists that go unfunded), but eventually in this “Biblio Circle of Life” the donations lose their identity as books for reading, whether from neglect, abuse or from too MUCH LOVE. In short, they lose their value as books, and become unsellable. Some are just plain obsolete, while some have their tattered pages falling from ragged bindings, spines splayed and worn, with parts chewed or devoured by more than just eyes.

Rags to Riches: Recycling Books for Fun, Fashion, and Furniture

The Crafty Bibliophile strives to make these, the last, the lost, the lonely, the losers, into the delightful, the delectable, and the desirable. In short, we transform "duds" into "Prom Queens." Looking for ways to use books for other purposes, whether for interesting craft activities for programs at the library, or for creating works of art or fashion for sale is the inspiration for the Crafty Bibliophile, the website, as well as the person. The “Rags to Riches: Recycling Books for Fun, Fashion, and Furniture” talk I’ve given many times to library groups and the Texas Library Association conferences grew from my explorations into ways to use up worthless books, instead of sending them to the landfill. My husband used to urge me to assure any listeners to my presentations that, “No book actually worth reading has been harmed in the making of these projects.”

The Crafty Bibliophile’s Mission

If I can find a way to re-use or re-purpose the materials that the Friends of the Library cannot use, I can prevent volumes from going to the landfill (no bibliophile wants that!), and if I can create practical things of beauty which become a revenue stream for the library, so much the better!

Since other libraries seem to have similar assets and challenges (books to get rid of and not enough income), the Crafty Bibliophile also gives talks at library meetings on how to stimulate creativity and implement crafty projects, not only to get rid of books and make money, but also to stimulate crafty programming for makerspaces and activities.

“No book actually worth reading has been harmed in the making of this project!”