2026 Albuquerque Book Donation Report
A year of free in-home book pickups, broken down by donor type, subject category, and named partner, with the routing measured at intake. The data behind the transparency commitment.
Published April 19, 2026 by Josh Eldred. Covers January 2026 through the latest revision.
Last verified October 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
Why this report exists
I'm Josh Eldred. I run New Mexico Literacy Project — Albuquerque's free in-home book-donation pickup service. One operation, one warehouse on Edith Blvd, one truck, one owner. The transparency page answers the qualitative question: who are the partners and what are the channels? This report answers the quantitative question: what did a full year of donations actually look like?
The honest baseline: nobody else in the Albuquerque book-donation space publishes a report like this. Goodwill doesn't. Salvation Army doesn't. The big national chains don't. The reason isn't that the data is hard to gather — it's that publishing it makes you accountable to the proportions you publish. I'd rather be accountable than opaque.
The proportions in this report come from weekly sort logs, eBay listing volume, partner handoffs, and pickup-scheduling records. They are reasonable estimates, not audited counts, accurate to roughly five percentage points each. If a number turns out to be off, I publish the correction on this page and in the corrections log. Email me if anything looks wrong.
One update since this report was first published: I now also have transaction-grounded numbers to sit alongside these hand-sort estimates. The State of New Mexico's Books pulls from scan records since 2021 and itemized marketplace and wholesale records going back to 2019: 447,734 items scanned at intake since 2021, and 55,695 marketplace orders shipped to buyers in all 50 states. Those numbers measure volume and demand; the donor and subject proportions in this report remain sort-log estimates, clearly labeled as such. The full data appendix is open at /api/annual-study-2026.json under CC BY 4.0.
Methodology — what is and isn't tracked
Before the numbers, the disclosure: this is a small operation with one truck, one warehouse, and one owner doing the sort. I scan books at intake for resale research, 447,734 items since 2021, but the donor and subject proportions below come from hand-sort logs, not from scan counts. What I do track is the following.
- Pickup count. Every scheduled in-home pickup goes on the calendar with date, neighborhood, donor type (estate / downsizer / active reader / professional referral), and rough box count.
- Sort outcomes. The Tuesday-Friday warehouse sort tracks which channel each box-load is routed to. Sort logs are kept by week, not by individual title.
- Partner handoffs. Readable books that don't sell go to Little Free Libraries, the La Vida Llena book cart and community literacy partners.
- eBay listing volume. The NMLP eBay shop tracks listings, sales, and inventory turnover. This gives a verifiable count of books that took the resale path.
- Recycling pickups. Damaged-book paper-recycling pickups are scheduled and logged — date, weight, vendor.
What I do not track:
- Title-level inventory for non-resale books. A children's book that goes to a community literacy partner or a cookbook that goes to Sunflower Meadow LFL is counted by category and quantity, not by ISBN.
- End-reader metrics. Once a book is in a Little Free Library or with a family's home, I have no way to track whether it is read, re-circulated, or kept on a shelf. That's a feature, not a bug — those books belong to the receivers, not to me.
- Donor demographics beyond what donors share unprompted. I do not collect age, race, income, or other personal information at pickup. The only "donor type" classification is operational (estate vs. downsizer vs. active reader vs. professional referral).
The bottom line: the proportions in this report are honest estimates from a year of close hands-on operation. They are not a substitute for an audit. They are the best honest record I can publish without inventing precision I don't have.
What I can measure about where books go
Measured at intake: of 447,734 items scanned from April 2021 to July 2026, 120,405 (about 27%) were listed individually and 23,226 (about 5%) went to a wholesale partner at scan.
I don't log every other book's exit individually, so I don't publish a split for the rest.
What I can cite instead is my own measured record. Across 528 itemized shipments to Powell's Books in Portland since November 2019, 9,293 books were accepted under professional grading — a 90.7% acceptance rate — evidence that the books passing through this warehouse are far from marginal inventory. See The State of New Mexico's Books for the full grading, demand, and intake-volume findings.
Who is donating books in Albuquerque
2026 broke down by donor type as follows. The estate channel dominates by volume — a single estate clear-out is often 1,000 to 3,000 books — but is not necessarily the most common pickup type by count.
Estate clear-outs
The largest single source of donated volume in 2026. These are pickups arranged after a death, a move into assisted living, or a downsizing transition where the heirs need the house cleared. The most common neighborhoods for estate pickups in 2026 were the Northeast Heights, the North Valley, the UNM/Nob Hill area, and the Far Northeast / Sandia Heights corridor — areas with longer-tenured homeowners and larger personal libraries. Estate pickups are also the channel that produced the most notable resale finds, including a signed 1965 Reagan memoir.
Active downsizers
People moving from a larger home to a smaller one, often into a retirement community, a condo, or out of state. La Vida Llena residents and incoming residents are a recurring source here, which is part of why the partnership with that community runs both directions: La Vida Llena residents donate books in, and readable books go back out to the La Vida Llena book cart. The full-circle case study is documented on the /stories page.
Active readers
The smallest by volume, the most consistent by frequency. These are donors with a working library who want to make shelf space — often two to six boxes at a time, often the same donor every six to twelve months. Active-reader donations skew heavily toward contemporary fiction, current non-fiction, and recent best-sellers, which means they are the strongest source of fast-turn eBay inventory.
Professional referrals
Estate attorneys, real-estate agents, senior-move managers, and bankruptcy/probate professionals who refer their clients to me as the books-and-paper specialist on a multi-disposal estate clear-out. Professional-referral pickups are typically larger than direct-donor pickups and almost always estate-driven.
What kinds of books were donated
Subject-matter mix is a useful tell for which channels each donation feeds. Here's the rough 2026 breakdown across major categories.
The Southwest shelf is small but disproportionately important
Only about 8% of the year's incoming volume was Southwest, regional, or Native American studies, but this is the category that produced the highest per-book resale value, the most attorney-referred estate pickups, and the most depth-of-collection signals. A shelf with Hillerman, Anaya, Silko, Momaday, Nichols, and Abbey together is the single strongest "this is a serious ABQ library" signal I encounter, and a shelf that adds Jimmy Santiago Baca, Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Luci Tapahonso, or Pat Mora to that core is almost always a collector or a retired humanities professor rather than a casual reader. The thirteen author and publisher deep-dive pillars fully featured on this site (Hillerman, Anaya, Silko, Momaday, Nichols, Abbey, Quinto Sol Press, Baca, Harjo, Mora, Ortiz, Frank Waters, and Tapahonso), plus the broader Southwest-author identification hub covering another two dozen regional authors, exist because this category, despite its small share of volume, drives the highest-value pickups and the most professional referrals.
Children's books are over-represented in the partner channels
Children's and YA titles were 18% of incoming volume but accounted for closer to 35% of what went out via community literacy partners. Children's books I can't resell go free to community literacy partners and Little Free Libraries. The volume-vs-impact gap on this category is the single most rewarding part of the year.
Academic and textbook material has the highest recycling rate
College textbooks more than two editions out of date have essentially no resale value and rarely fit a community channel. They constitute a disproportionate share of the recycling stream: academic and textbook material was about 7% of incoming volume but roughly 25% of what went to paper recycling. The honest disclosure: outdated textbooks are the hardest category to keep out of the recycling channel.
Named partner activity in 2026
Each named partner on the transparency page ran on a different cadence in 2026. Here's the operational summary.
La Vida Llena Retirement Community
Readable books go to the La Vida Llena book cart, and residents' books come in when they downsize. On Tuesdays I help load household goods residents give to a local family-support program; books are not part of that load (correction C-0016).
Little Free Library at Sunflower Meadow Park
Cadence: As-needed restocking, typically every two to three weeks, weighted toward children's, contemporary fiction, and Southwest regional titles.
Neighborhood-run Little Free Library. The most photographable destination for a donated book; Saturday mornings see steady turnover from local families.
New Mexico Literacy Project eBay Shop
Cadence: Continuous listing, daily shipping. 2026 activity: Several thousand listings active or sold across the year. Inventory: View live shop.
The resale channel funds the entire operation. Without eBay revenue, the free pickup truck, the warehouse rent, the labor for hand-sorting every box, and the partner handoffs do not work financially. This is the channel that makes everything else possible.
What "named partner" means: every entity above is a real place you can check: the Little Free Library at Sunflower Meadow Park is a real box at a real address, and the eBay shop URL above is the live store. Falsifiable claims by design.
A photographed restock from this month
Two photos from a single Sunday-afternoon Little Free Library loop. NMLP bookmarks visible in both — that's how the channel is auditable. The Riordan middle-grade run was a 2-week-old donation from a North Valley family; the academic stack on the second box's bottom shelf came from a retired professor's library I picked up in the Northeast Heights.
Full case write-up with title-by-title provenance: Case Study #4 on the Stories page.
The damaged-book recycling stream
Some incoming books in 2026 were not viable for resale or community redistribution. The reasons, in roughly descending order:
- Mold or water damage — books from garages, basements, or homes with HVAC issues. Cannot be safely redistributed.
- Outdated textbooks and reference — college textbooks more than two editions out of date, outdated tax/legal/medical reference books, outdated travel guides.
- Broken bindings, missing covers, or extensive markup — books that have been heavily marked up, had pages torn out, or are physically falling apart.
- Pest damage — silverfish, mice, or insect damage; rare but unsalvageable when present.
- Duplicate inventory at saturation — for high-volume titles where the eBay shop and partner channels are already saturated, additional copies are routed to recycling rather than warehoused indefinitely.
All of these go to an Albuquerque-area paper-recycling vendor, not a landfill, not a dumpster, not the trash. The vendor processes mixed paper and the books re-enter the paper supply chain rather than ending up in the Cerro Colorado landfill or the Rio Rancho transfer station. This channel is small and intentional. It is also the reason the "no readable book goes to the landfill" promise on the homepage is a defensible claim rather than marketing fiction.
Where the recycling stream went in 2026: all paper-recycling pickups in 2026 went through a single Albuquerque-area mixed-paper vendor located near the warehouse. Pickups were scheduled, logged by date and weight, and accompanied by the standard recycling-vendor receipt. If a donor wants to see the receipt for the month their books were sorted, I can produce it.
What didn't happen in 2026
Transparency reports often only describe what did happen. The negative space — what didn't happen — matters at least as much, because it's where the comparison to opaque competitors actually lives.
No readable book went to landfill
Every readable book either entered a re-circulation channel or went to the paper-recycling stream. The "no dumpster, no landfill" promise on the homepage is operationally defended by the recycling channel, not by hand-waving.
No donated books were shipped overseas
NMLP did not export any donated books in 2026. Books left the warehouse to marketplace buyers across the United States, to Powell's Books in Portland under professional grading, to Little Free Libraries and community literacy partners around Albuquerque, or to a paper recycler.
No bulk-pulping of resaleable inventory
Undated industry commentary claims that a majority of donated books at large US thrift chains are pulped without ever being shelved, a widely repeated but uncited figure. No category of incoming book was bulk-routed to recycling without an individual sort decision.
No donor data was sold or shared
Pickup-scheduling data (name, address, donation type) is held by NMLP for operational purposes only. It is not sold, shared, or used for any third-party marketing. The only data shared with named partners is the operational handoff itself (e.g., "this pallet of children's books for a community literacy partner").
Observations and trends from the year
Estate pickups grew faster than other categories
The estate channel was about 50% of total volume in 2026, up from a smaller share in prior years. Two reasons stand out: outreach to ABQ estate attorneys created a referral pipeline that did not previously exist; and the broader Albuquerque demographic curve continues to bring more long-tenured-homeowner estates onto the market. The 2027 expectation is for this share to hold or grow.
Southwest-author identification became a search-traffic driver
The spring 2026 launch of the Hillerman, Anaya, Silko, Momaday, Nichols, Abbey, and Quinto Sol Press pillars generated organic search traffic from people specifically trying to identify a notable Southwest book in an estate library. The first organic-search lead from the rebuilt site came in April 2026 within a day of deploy. The cluster has since expanded to include Baca, Harjo, Pat Mora, Simon Ortiz, Frank Waters, and Luci Tapahonso, with an additional twenty regional authors covered at shorter depth on the Southwest-author hub. The 2027 plan is to continue building out the Southwest-author and -publisher cluster.
Children's and YA volume held steady
The Little Free Library channel skews children's-heavy on Saturday mornings — these are the books most visibly "in the wild" in the donation network.
Intake peaks from June through September
Measured intake records from 2021 to 2026 show a summer-into-fall pattern in raw volume: June through September account for roughly 51% of the year's scanned intake, with August the single peak month. See The State of New Mexico's Books for the full seasonality data.
The single most-asked donor question
"Where do my books actually go?" Every week. From estate clients, from active donors, from people deciding between me and Goodwill. This report exists to give that question a concrete, falsifiable answer instead of a brochure-quality non-answer.
The 2027 commitment
A one-time transparency report is a marketing document. An annual report at the same URL pattern, year after year, is a track record. The 2027 ABQ Book Donation Report will publish in April 2027 with the same structure: routing measured at intake, donor patterns, subject breakdowns, named partner activity, and what didn't happen. The 2026 report stays at this URL permanently. The 2027 report will live at /2027-albuquerque-book-donation-report. Each year's data is preserved.
The 2027 report will add two things this report doesn't have yet: (1) a year-over-year change column on every proportion table, and (2) a named "what I got wrong" section if any of the 2026 estimates need correcting against 2027 actuals.
If you want a notification when the 2027 report publishes, email me. I'll add you to a small notification list — no marketing, just the report.
Have books to donate? Schedule a free pickup.
Free pickup across the Albuquerque metro, scheduled by route, or the covered 24/7 drop box outside the gate at 5445 Edith Blvd NE any hour.
Related Reading
Where Donated Books Go
The named-partner map — who they are, where they are, what they receive.
Donation Stories
Four anonymized estate and downsize case studies — the human side of the data above.
Frank Waters
The Man Who Killed the Deer, Book of the Hopi, People of the Valley — the indispensable Taos-era regionalist.
Cite This Guide
Eldred, J. (April 2026). 2026 Albuquerque Book Donation Report. New Mexico Literacy Project.
https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/2026-albuquerque-book-donation-report
Content is original research by Josh Eldred. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite with attribution.