Sorting Book Donations

ITEMS FOR RECYCLING: Condition Issues: Most people are very generous and give us great items, but sometimes they are cleaning an attic and the books have clear condition issues such as mold, musty smell or smoke issues. These should be isolated for recycling. Broken spines and/or missing dustjackets are okay. But when it reaches the point where pages are falling out, or there are multiple tears along the spine that effect the structure its better to recycle. Age Issues: In general if it doesn't have an ISBN number (started in the 70's) it is really old. For the hard sciences, law/legal, political science, it should have an ISBN number to be relevant. But for the humanities (religion, philosophy, languages, art, music,classics etc.) age isn't relevant and sometimes older works are desiered. The exception to this are items of historical value- If you are in doubt include it. Outside of these recycling issues, if its possible to divide donations between non-fiction, fiction and children before bringing them over. Children's books we collect and once there are enough we will be donating to one of two local children organizations or schools,so they are kept at a separate location. Fiction, I can turn over to any volunteer who wants to shelve. Non-fiction I need to examine to determine whether to keep it for the prisoners or sell for fundraising. Thank you everyone, this will help us tremendously!