Donate Books from Albuquerque Schools

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

NMLP and Albuquerque Schools

Schools generate surplus books constantly. It is one of the least-discussed logistical realities of running an educational institution. Library shelves reach capacity and need weeding. Curriculum adoptions make previous materials obsolete overnight. Teachers leave and their classroom libraries stay behind in boxes nobody quite knows what to do with. Book fairs produce unsold inventory. Storage closets fill up with textbooks from two adoptions ago that nobody has gotten around to removing. And year after year, the default solution is the same: the books sit in closets, migrate to a storage room, and eventually end up in a dumpster when someone finally runs out of patience or space.

I started the New Mexico Literacy Project in Albuquerque, and working with schools has been part of the operation from the beginning. The pattern was impossible to ignore. I would pick up a personal library from someone's home, and they would mention that their daughter is a teacher at an APS elementary school and the school has three closets full of surplus books that nobody will take. Or a librarian would call about her own collection at home, and then ask if I could also handle the two hundred volumes she just weeded from the school library. The need was already there. I just had to say yes.

Here is how the partnership works in plain terms. NMLP picks up surplus books from any school in the Albuquerque metro area at no cost. I bring the vehicle and do the carrying. I take everything — fiction, nonfiction, textbooks, curriculum materials, teacher editions, media, reference books, picture books, chapter books, young adult novels, professional development titles, and whatever else has accumulated. The school does not need to sort, categorize, or box anything in advance, though boxing does make the physical process faster. I coordinate directly with the librarian, teacher, or administrator who is managing the surplus, and I schedule the pickup around the school's calendar.

Every book that comes through the warehouse gets individually assessed. That is the core of what I do, and it is what distinguishes NMLP from dropping boxes at Goodwill or putting them on the curb. A school library weeding project might produce three hundred books, and within that batch there could be early printings of now-collectible children's titles, signed copies from author visits, out-of-print reference works with genuine demand, regional titles about New Mexico history that have a collector market, and perfectly good reading copies that belong in another classroom or a community program. The only way to find those items is to look at every single book. That is what I do. For more on my assessment process and how I identify value in large collections, see my library valuation page.

I want to be direct about something that matters, because transparency is how I operate. NMLP is a for-profit business. I am not a nonprofit, not a charity, and donations to NMLP are not tax-deductible. I make that clear upfront because schools deserve to know exactly who they are working with. The value I provide is logistical — I solve a real problem that schools face, I do it for free, and I ensure that books are reused, redistributed, or responsibly recycled rather than landfilled. Items with collector value generate income for the business. Readable copies go to community programs, children's literacy initiatives, and other schools that need them. Nothing usable goes to waste. That is the deal, and it works for everyone involved.

I currently work with schools across APS, Rio Rancho, Los Lunas, Belen, Bernalillo, Moriarty-Edgewood, and Santa Fe. The service extends statewide — if you are a school anywhere in New Mexico with a significant volume of surplus books, I can coordinate a pickup. The Albuquerque metro is where I operate daily, so scheduling is easiest here. But a school library liquidation in Las Cruces or Farmington or Roswell is worth a trip if the volume is there. Start with a call or text to 702-496-4214 and I will figure out the logistics together.

Charter School Library Donations

Albuquerque has one of the densest charter school landscapes in the country. There are dozens of charter schools operating in the metro area, ranging from small single-campus operations with fewer than two hundred students to larger multi-campus networks. Charter schools face a unique version of the surplus book problem that differs from traditional APS schools in several important ways, and understanding those differences matters if you are a charter school administrator or board member trying to figure out what to do with surplus library materials.

First, space. Most charter schools operate in facilities that were not originally designed as schools. Converted commercial buildings, former churches, shared-use spaces, modular buildings — the physical plant is often constrained in ways that traditional school buildings are not. A traditional APS elementary school has a dedicated library room, storage closets in every classroom, and usually some kind of central storage area. A charter school might have a library corner in a multipurpose room and essentially zero surplus storage. When a charter school library needs refreshing, the outgoing books have to go somewhere immediately because there is no closet to stash them in for three years.

Second, the governance and property structures at charter schools are often different from traditional districts. A charter school's library collection may have been built through a combination of grants, donor funds, PTA contributions, and school operational budgets. The decision-making about what constitutes surplus and who authorizes disposal typically runs through the school director or principal, sometimes with board involvement for larger disposals. The process is usually faster and less bureaucratic than at a large district, which means that when a charter school decides to refresh its library, the timeline from decision to action can be very short.

Third, charter school libraries tend to be more curated and more personal than large district collections. A school director who hand-selected every title in the school library has a different relationship with those books than a district librarian managing a collection built over decades by multiple predecessors. When charter school leaders call me about surplus books, there is often a real concern about where the books will end up. They chose those titles deliberately, and they want to know the books will be treated with care. That is something I can genuinely promise — every book gets individually assessed, and readable copies continue circulating rather than going to a landfill.

I have worked with charter schools across Albuquerque — Montessori programs, STEM-focused academies, arts-integrated schools, language immersion programs, and community-based charters. Each school has its own character and its own collection profile. A language immersion charter might have a significant collection of Spanish-language children's literature that has real value in the collector and educator markets. A STEM charter might have science reference books and lab manuals from programs that are no longer available. The specifics vary, but the service is the same: I come, I take everything, and I assess every book individually.

For charter school administrators who have never worked with NMLP before: the process is straightforward. Call or text 702-496-4214 and let me know what you have. I schedule a pickup that works with your calendar, I come with the vehicle, and I take everything. The whole process typically takes less than an hour for a standard charter school library refresh. If you are in the middle of a larger transition — a campus move, a closure, or a significant program restructuring — I can handle larger volumes with additional trips as needed.

Title I School Book Drives

Title I schools serve student populations where a significant percentage of families meet federal poverty guidelines. In Albuquerque, a substantial number of APS schools carry Title I designation, and book access for students in these schools is a persistent challenge. Home libraries in low-income households tend to be smaller, and the research connecting book access to reading achievement is well established. Book drives targeting Title I schools are a common community response — churches, civic groups, businesses, and parent organizations collect books to give to students and classrooms at Title I schools. NMLP plays a role on both sides of this equation.

On the receiving side, NMLP accepts donations from book drives. If you are organizing a book drive in New Mexico and you have collected more books than your target school or program can absorb, or if the books need sorting before they can be distributed, NMLP can take the overflow. I sort everything, identify items that are age-appropriate and in good condition for classroom use, and route those books to where they are needed. Book drives often collect a wide range of materials — adult fiction mixed with children's picture books mixed with reference volumes — and the sorting process is essential to making sure the right books reach the right readers.

On the supply side, NMLP donates sorted children's books to Title I classrooms and programs. The books that come through my warehouse include a steady stream of children's literature in good, readable condition — picture books, early readers, chapter books, and middle-grade fiction. These are books that have value as reading material even though they may not have collector value. A well-loved copy of a Beverly Cleary novel that has been through one classroom already has dozens of good reads left in it. I route these books to Title I schools, after-school programs serving low-income students, APS McKinney-Vento families (students experiencing homelessness), and community organizations that distribute books to children.

If you are a Title I school administrator or a teacher at a Title I school and your students need books, contact me. I cannot promise specific titles or quantities at any given time because my inventory depends on what comes through the door, but I regularly have children's books in multiple reading levels and genres available for distribution. The books are free to Title I programs. This is one of the ways NMLP gives back to the community that supports the business — the collector-value items generate income, and the readable children's books go to kids who need them.

For book drive organizers working specifically with Title I schools: NMLP is happy to be both a collection point and a distribution partner. If your civic group or church is running a book drive and you want the books to go to a specific Title I school, I can help with the sorting and condition assessment that makes the books classroom-ready. If you just need a place to send the books and trust us to route them where they are needed most, that works too. Either way, the starting point is a call or text to 702-496-4214. For a step-by-step walkthrough on running a book drive, see my book drive organizer guide.

Classroom Library Refreshes

Classroom libraries are living collections. They change as students damage books beyond repair, as reading levels shift with different class compositions, as teachers discover new titles they want to feature, and as older titles fall out of favor with current students. A classroom library that felt vibrant and well-stocked five years ago can start to feel stale — the same titles have been on the shelves for years, the most popular books are falling apart, and the collection no longer reflects the reading interests and identities of the students in the room. Good teachers refresh their classroom libraries regularly, which means old books need to go somewhere to make room for new ones.

The "somewhere" question is where NMLP comes in. When a teacher pulls thirty or forty books off the classroom shelves because they are too damaged, too dated, or just not connecting with students anymore, those books typically go in a box under the teacher's desk and then eventually in the trash. It does not have to work that way. Even books that are not right for one classroom anymore might be exactly right for another classroom, another reading level, or another context entirely. A picture book that a third-grade teacher has retired because her students have outgrown it might be perfect for a first-grade classroom across town. A chapter book that students are no longer choosing might find an audience at a different school or through a community literacy program.

NMLP handles classroom library refreshes at any scale. A single teacher with a box of outgoing books can schedule a pickup or drop them at my 24/7 book drop at 5445 Edith Blvd NE. A school where multiple teachers are refreshing their libraries simultaneously can coordinate a single pickup date and I handle everything at once. For retiring teachers who are clearing out an entire career's worth of classroom books, the scale is larger but the process is identical — I come, I take everything, and every book gets assessed.

Teachers who are refreshing classroom libraries should know that the books they are removing might include items with value they are not aware of. This is the same dynamic I see with retiring teachers, just at a smaller scale. That copy of "Charlotte's Web" that has been on the shelf for fifteen years might be an early printing. The signed copy of a children's book from an author visit years ago might have collector interest. A teacher who is replacing worn-out copies of popular titles might be replacing something that, despite its condition, has significance beyond its use as a reading copy. I check every book. That is the point.

If you are a teacher in Albuquerque or anywhere in New Mexico and you are doing a classroom library refresh, do not throw the outgoing books away. Call or text 702-496-4214. Even a single box is worth picking up, and it takes less time to call me than to carry the box to the dumpster. Your old books deserve better, and in many cases, they still have life left in them — they just need to find the right reader.

Summer Cleanout Programs

June and July are the busiest months of the year for school-related book pickups, and it is not even close. The confluence of end-of-year activities creates a concentrated window where schools need books removed and teachers need classrooms cleared. Retiring teachers are clearing out decades of accumulated materials. Teachers who are transferring to other schools or leaving the profession need their classrooms emptied. Schools are being renovated over the summer, and everything has to come out of rooms that are being worked on. Classrooms are being reorganized for the incoming year, and that reorganization often surfaces books that have been sitting in closets and cabinets untouched for years. And occasionally, a school is closing entirely or being consolidated with another school, and the entire building needs to be cleared.

The summer timeline creates urgency. Teachers are typically required to have their classrooms cleared by a specific date, and that date is often earlier than teachers expect. A teacher who retires at the end of May might have two weeks to clear a classroom that took twenty-five years to fill. The school's custodial staff needs the room ready for summer cleaning and any maintenance work. The administration needs classrooms ready for incoming teachers who might want to start setting up in July. The whole system pushes toward rapid clearance, and rapid clearance is the enemy of thoughtful book disposition. When the deadline is Thursday and you have twelve boxes of books and no plan, the dumpster wins by default.

NMLP schedules aggressively during the summer to accommodate the wave of school pickups. I know the calendar. I know that the last week of May and the first two weeks of June are when the volume peaks. I know that by mid-June, the urgency shifts from teachers clearing classrooms to administrators dealing with whatever was left behind. And I know that July brings a second wave as schools start preparing for the next year and discover boxes of books that were hastily stashed somewhere during the June rush. I build capacity for all of this, and I prioritize school pickups during the summer window because the timelines are real and the consequences of missing them — books in the dumpster — are permanent.

If your school is planning any kind of summer cleanout that involves books, the single best thing you can do is contact NMLP before the end of the school year. Do not wait until the boxes are packed and the deadline is tomorrow. A phone call in mid-May gets you on the schedule for late May or early June, which means the books are gone before the crunch hits. Schools that have worked with me before know this and typically reach out in April or May to get summer pickups on the calendar. Schools that are new to the partnership tend to call in the last week of school when everything is already urgent. Both situations work, but advance planning makes the process smoother for everyone.

Summer is also when school consolidations and closures generate the largest single-event book volumes. When a school closes, the library has to go somewhere. The classroom libraries across every room have to go somewhere. The storage rooms full of old textbooks and curriculum materials have to go somewhere. NMLP has handled complete school library liquidations, and the process involves multiple trips, careful coordination with the school's closing timeline, and a significant sorting effort at the warehouse. If your district is closing or consolidating a school and you need a partner for the book disposition, call 702-496-4214 as early in the planning process as possible. The earlier I start, the more orderly the process.

For a broader look at my free book pickup service and how scheduling works outside the school context, that page covers the full details. But for schools specifically, summer is the season, and the earlier you reach out, the better positioned everyone is to handle the volume responsibly.

How to Set Up a School Partnership

Setting up a partnership between your school and NMLP is straightforward, and it starts with a single point of contact. Call or text 702-496-4214. That is my direct line — Josh Eldred, owner and operator. There is no phone tree, no intake form, no waiting for a callback from a volunteer coordinator. You reach me directly, and I start the conversation about what you have and when it needs to be picked up.

The first step is getting the right person on board at the school. NMLP needs approval from the school administration — typically the principal — before I come to a school building. This is not a bureaucratic hurdle; it is common sense. I am entering a school campus, interacting with staff, and removing materials from the building. The principal needs to know this is happening and approve it. In practice, the initial contact comes from one of three people: the librarian or media specialist who has weeded the collection and needs the materials removed, a teacher who is clearing a classroom and knows the books need a destination, or an administrator who is dealing with surplus from a building-level project. Whoever makes the initial contact, I ask that the principal is informed and approves the pickup before I schedule.

Once approval is in place, I schedule the pickup. I work around the school's calendar — school hours, before school, after school, weekends, teacher workdays, summer break. Whatever time works best for the school works for me. The only constraints are building access (someone needs to let us in) and loading access (I need to be able to get the vehicle reasonably close to wherever the books are). Most schools have a loading area near the cafeteria or a back entrance that works well. If the school is in a campus configuration without obvious loading access, I figure it out. I have carried boxes down flights of stairs, through long hallways, and across playgrounds. The books get picked up regardless of the physical layout.

On pickup day, I arrive with the vehicle, come to the designated location, and start loading. If the books are boxed, the process is fast — carry boxes to the vehicle, load, done. If the books are on shelves, I bring boxes and pack them on site. If the books are in a disorganized storage situation — which is more common than you might think — I sort through whatever is there and take everything that is book or media related. The school keeps anything it wants to keep; I take the rest. A typical classroom-scale pickup takes thirty to forty-five minutes. A library-scale pickup might take two to three hours depending on volume and building logistics.

After the first pickup, many schools establish a recurring relationship. The librarian calls once or twice a year when weeding produces a batch of books. Teachers call when they are refreshing classroom libraries or retiring. The PTA calls after the used book sale. The school knows the process, has the number, and does not need to explain the whole arrangement from scratch each time. That is the partnership model — low friction, no paperwork, and the knowledge that surplus books have a responsible destination whenever they accumulate.

For schools that want to use my 24/7 book drop instead of scheduling a pickup, that is also an option. The book drop is at 5445 Edith Blvd NE in Albuquerque, and it is accessible around the clock. Teachers and staff members who prefer to drop off smaller batches of books on their own schedule can use the book drop anytime. For larger volumes — anything more than what fits comfortably in a personal vehicle — a scheduled pickup is more practical, and I handle all the labor.

If you are ready to set up a school partnership or schedule your first pickup, the process starts with one call. 702-496-4214. Call or text. I respond to every inquiry personally, and I will have a plan in place within minutes. For the complete picture of how NMLP handles book donations of all kinds — not just from schools — my complete donation guide covers every scenario.

More Resources for School Book Donations