BOOK DONATIONS

Like many people, you don’t want to simply throw books away. You feel that someone will want to read them. And you think that the best place for your books is the public library.

St. Louis Public Library in fact gets offered numerous book donations. So many, in fact, that we simply cannot take them all. This does not mean we don’t think your books are valuable. Of course we do. We are a library! We truly want to help you find a home for your books. A number of organizations in the St. Louis area accept book donations. Some of them can be found here.

As the St. Louis Public Library, we are interested in preserving the history of St. Louis; in building collections that document its history. So we are interested in getting materials about or related to the St. Louis region. An example--we get many requests for St. Louis City high school yearbooks. We have many for various City high schools (past & present) but we have gaps. We would love for people to contact us to see if they have just the ones we need to fill these gaps.

Do you have other St. Louis books or materials? St. Louis neighborhood material, books by local authors, works on St. Louis businesses are other categories that we look for. If you have St. Louis books or materials, check with us.

We also know that some of you may have collected on specific subjects for years, carefully compiling a collection that cannot be found elsewhere. The Library will also consider donations of such unique collections that can complement items we already have. Examples are African-American materials, sheet music, architectural subjects, and family and county histories.

To find out if you can help us-–or if we can help you--call our Collection Development Department (314-539-0330) or Special Collections (314-539-0399).

Book donation form