Santa Fe Higher Education · Book Donations
Santa Fe University & College Textbook Donations
Santa Fe's colleges and universities produce some of the most distinctive book collections in New Mexico. From IAIA's Indigenous arts library to St. John's Great Books canon, from SFCC's nursing textbooks to the scattered libraries of former SFUAD students, I pick up everything — and I know what these books are worth.
Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
Santa Fe Is a Book Town — And Its Colleges Prove It
I've been picking up book donations across New Mexico for years now, and Santa Fe punches well above its weight when it comes to the quality of collections people are ready to part with. This isn't a surprise to anyone who knows the city. Santa Fe is a place where people read — seriously, deeply, and across an unusually broad range of subjects. The literary festival scene, the bookstores that have survived and thrived (Collected Works on Galisteo, Op.Cit. on Cerrillos Road), the poetry readings, the gallery openings with stacks of artist monographs on every table — Santa Fe's relationship with the printed word is different from most American cities of its size.
And the colleges feed that culture. Santa Fe has four institutions of higher education — three active and one closed — that each serve a distinct purpose and produce a distinct kind of library. The Institute of American Indian Arts trains Indigenous artists and writers at a nationally recognized level. St. John's College runs the most rigorous Great Books program in the country. Santa Fe Community College educates nurses, tradespeople, business professionals, and early childhood educators. And the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, which closed its doors in 2018, left behind a generation of alumni holding art, film, and design libraries that are now increasingly hard to replace.
I want all of those books. Every category, every condition, every quantity. Graduating IAIA MFA student with a shelf of contemporary Indigenous poetry? St. John's alumnus whose seminar library has been in boxes since you moved to Santa Fe from Annapolis? SFCC nursing student upgrading to the newest edition? SFUAD graduate holding onto graphic design textbooks from a program that no longer exists? — I'll come get them.
My warehouse is at 5445 Edith Blvd NE in Albuquerque, about 60 miles south on I-25. That corridor between Santa Fe and Albuquerque is one of the most well-traveled stretches of highway in the state, and I make regular runs up and down it. For larger collections I'll come to you in Santa Fe. For a box or two, you can drop off at my 24/7 bin in Albuquerque or mail them. Either way, call or text 702-496-4214 and I'll figure out the best option.
Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA)
Indigenous Arts & Literature · Active Institution
IAIA is unlike any other institution in the country. Located on 140 acres on the south side of Santa Fe, it's the only college in the United States dedicated exclusively to the study of contemporary Native arts and culture. The student body is predominantly Indigenous, drawn from tribal nations across the continent, and the academic programs span studio arts, creative writing, cinematic arts and technology, museum studies, and Indigenous liberal studies.
What makes IAIA book collections distinctive — and often genuinely valuable — is the specificity of the material. These aren't generic college textbooks. They're books that exist at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge, contemporary art practice, and academic scholarship, and many of them were produced in small runs by specialized publishers.
The MFA in Creative Writing
IAIA's low-residency MFA program in creative writing is one of the most prestigious programs of its kind in the country. It's the only MFA program in the United States housed at a tribal institution, and its graduates include some of the most important voices in contemporary Indigenous literature. The reading lists for this program are extraordinary — students work through contemporary Indigenous poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction alongside the broader literary canon, building personal libraries that reflect a tradition most MFA programs barely acknowledge.
When MFA students or alumni donate their collections, I'm often seeing first editions and early printings of work by writers like Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz, Luci Tapahonso, Tommy Orange, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, and dozens of others. Poetry chapbooks from small Indigenous presses. Limited-edition anthologies from IAIA's own literary events. Craft books on writing that span Western and Indigenous storytelling traditions. These collections have real depth, and the individual titles often have significant resale value in the collector market.
Museum Studies
IAIA's museum studies program trains students to work in museums, galleries, and cultural centers — with a particular emphasis on the representation and stewardship of Indigenous art and material culture. The textbooks and reference materials from this program include museum management guides, conservation manuals, exhibition design references, and critical theory texts about the politics of representation in cultural institutions. There's also a significant layer of art history — not the standard Western art survey, but art history centered on Indigenous artistic traditions across the Americas.
The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) on the Santa Fe Plaza produces exhibition catalogs that are themselves collectible. Students and faculty accumulate these alongside the broader scholarly literature, creating personal libraries that document an institution-specific tradition. When someone donates a museum studies collection from IAIA, I know I'm looking at material that researchers and collectors actively seek.
Studio Arts and Visual Culture
The studio arts programs at IAIA — painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, jewelry and metalsmithing, textiles — produce graduates who own art books that bridge Indigenous and contemporary global practice. Technique manuals for traditional media. Monographs on Indigenous artists working in contemporary forms. Catalogs from IAIA student shows and alumni exhibitions. Books on the Santa Fe and Taos art markets, on the history of Indian Market, on the evolution of Native art from ethnographic curiosity to contemporary fine art.
Art books are heavy and take up space, which means they're often the first things to go when someone moves or downsizes. That works in everyone's favor — these books find new readers through my channels, and the donor gets their shelf space back. If you're an IAIA studio arts graduate with a collection of art books gathering dust, text me at 702-496-4214. I'll come get them.
What IAIA Books Are Worth
I don't quote dollar amounts — I use a tier system to describe value ranges, and I'm happy to walk you through what your specific books fall into when I talk. What I can tell you is that IAIA collections routinely include material at my upper tiers. Signed first editions of major Indigenous literary works. Out-of-print MoCNA catalogs. Rare poetry chapbooks. Art books with limited print runs. Even standard IAIA textbooks in current editions have solid resale value because the programs are specialized enough that used copies are always in demand.
The key point is that I sort everything by hand. Nothing from an IAIA collection gets tossed in a generic donation bin. Every title is evaluated individually, and the books with collector or resale value are routed to the channels where they'll bring the best return. That return is what funds the whole operation — and books I can't resell, I try to rehome where I can, stocking Little Free Libraries and passing children's titles to APS Title I schools.
St. John's College
The Great Books Program · Active Institution
St. John's College in Santa Fe is one of two campuses (the other is in Annapolis, Maryland) running the most intensive Great Books curriculum in American higher education. There are no electives. There are no majors. Every student reads the same books, in roughly the same sequence, over four years — a systematic progression through the foundational texts of Western civilization from the ancient Greeks through the twentieth century. Philosophy, literature, mathematics, laboratory science, music — all taught through primary texts rather than textbooks about those texts.
This means that when a St. John's student graduates, they own one of the most coherent personal libraries you'll ever encounter. Not a random accumulation of whatever courses they happened to take, but a curated progression through the Western canon that reflects a deliberate intellectual project. Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes. Plato's complete dialogues. Aristotle's major works. Euclid's Elements. Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau. Shakespeare, Milton, Cervantes, Austen, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Hegel. Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein. And that's just the undergraduate program — the Graduate Institute adds its own layer of concentrated reading, with master's tracks in liberal arts and in Eastern Classics.
Why Collectors Want St. John's Libraries
The collector market for personal libraries is partly about individual titles and partly about coherence. A shelf of random paperbacks is just a shelf of random paperbacks. But a complete or near-complete St. John's seminar reading list — the specific editions the college assigns, read in the specific sequence the curriculum requires — tells a story. It represents an intellectual journey, and collectors of personal libraries respond to that.
St. John's uses particular editions and translations for many of its texts. The Lattimore Homer, the Jowett Plato, the specific Loeb Classical Library volumes for Greek and Latin works. Students accumulate these over four years, often annotating them heavily in the margins during seminar discussions. Those annotations, far from diminishing value for certain buyers, actually increase it — a thoughtfully annotated Great Books library shows evidence of genuine engagement with the material.
I've picked up St. John's collections that span hundreds of volumes and cover the entire curriculum from freshman year through the Graduate Institute. These are some of the most satisfying pickups I do, because I know exactly what I'm looking at and I know the market for it. The philosophy sections alone — complete runs through the major Western philosophers in the editions St. John's prescribes — have consistent resale value. The literature sections move quickly. Even the mathematics and science texts (Euclid, Newton's Principia, Darwin's Origin) find eager buyers because they're the specific translations and editions that Great Books readers trust.
The Graduate Institute
St. John's Graduate Institute in Liberal Education draws students from across the country who want to do focused work in the Great Books tradition after completing their undergraduate education elsewhere. The GI reading lists are more concentrated than the undergraduate program — deeper dives into specific periods, traditions, or disciplines. Graduate Institute students often arrive in Santa Fe already owning substantial libraries, and they add to them significantly during their time in the program.
When GI students leave Santa Fe — and many do, since the program draws from a national pool — they face the same dilemma every book-heavy person faces during a long-distance move: what to keep and what to let go. The books they accumulated specifically for their GI seminars are often the first to be donated, especially if those texts overlap with what they already owned. I'm glad to take the overflow. These are high-quality editions of important texts, and they move quickly through my channels.
Faculty Libraries at St. John's
St. John's calls its faculty "tutors" rather than professors, and the tutors are expected to teach across the entire curriculum — not just their area of original specialization. A tutor who came to St. John's as a philosopher might teach mathematics one year and ancient Greek the next. This produces faculty libraries of unusual breadth. When a tutor retires or a family settles a tutor's estate, the personal library often spans the entire Western intellectual tradition in a way that a typical university professor's library — deep in one discipline — does not.
If you're connected to St. John's College in any capacity — current student, alumnus, faculty, staff, or just a Santa Fe resident who accumulated Great Books on your own — and you have books to donate, call or text 702-496-4214. I know what these collections are worth, and I'll make sure every title gets to the right destination.
Santa Fe Community College (SFCC)
Nursing, Trades, Business & Education · Active Institution
Santa Fe Community College is the practical backbone of higher education in Santa Fe. While IAIA and St. John's occupy their distinctive niches, SFCC is training the nurses, EMTs, electricians, welders, business administrators, and early childhood educators that the region needs. The campus on Richards Avenue serves thousands of students across certificate programs, associate degrees, and workforce training, and the textbook ecosystem cycles fast.
Community college textbooks are some of the most in-demand used books in my entire operation. New editions come out regularly, which means students are constantly shedding previous editions, and those previous editions are in high demand from other students looking to save money. The cycle is predictable: publisher releases new edition, bookstore stocks new edition, students sell or donate previous edition, another student buys the previous edition at a fraction of the cost. I sit in the middle of that cycle, and I move community college textbooks faster than almost any other category of book I handle.
Nursing and Health Sciences
SFCC's nursing program is one of the most competitive in northern New Mexico, and the textbooks are among the most expensive individual volumes students buy. Anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, medical-surgical nursing, pediatric nursing, psychiatric nursing, pathophysiology — each course requires substantial textbook investment, and many students end up with shelves of nursing texts they no longer need once they've passed the NCLEX and entered practice.
Current-edition nursing textbooks move through my resale channels very quickly. They're in constant demand from incoming nursing students at every community college in the state. But even older editions have value — students use them as supplementary study material, nursing refresher courses reference them, and the fundamental anatomy and physiology content doesn't change as fast as the publishers want you to think. I take nursing textbooks in any edition and any condition.
Trades and Technical Programs
The trades programs at SFCC — welding, electrical, construction technology, sustainable technologies — use technical manuals and reference books that are built to last. The NEC (National Electrical Code) codebooks, welding procedure handbooks, blueprint reading guides, OSHA reference materials — these are practical books designed for working professionals, and they hold their value well in the used market. Tradespeople coming up through SFCC's programs are always looking for affordable copies of these references, and I keep them in circulation.
SFCC's sustainable technologies program is particularly interesting from a book perspective. Solar installation manuals, energy efficiency guides, green building references, and the broader literature on renewable energy and sustainability — these texts reflect Santa Fe's investment in clean energy workforce development, and they're in demand well beyond the Santa Fe market. I see buyers from across the Southwest for good-condition sustainability textbooks.
Business, Education, and General Studies
The business administration program generates the usual stream of intro-level business textbooks — accounting, management, marketing, economics, business law — that every community college produces. These are commodity textbooks with predictable resale patterns. I handle a lot of them and they move steadily.
SFCC's early childhood education program is worth noting specifically because it generates books on child development, educational psychology, classroom management, and multicultural education that are always in demand. New Mexico has a significant need for trained early childhood educators, and the textbooks from SFCC's program circulate widely among students entering the field across the state.
The general studies courses — English composition, mathematics, history, psychology, sociology — use textbooks that are functionally interchangeable with those at community colleges everywhere. They're not exotic, but they're useful, and I keep them moving. If you've finished your courses at SFCC and you're done with the books, text 702-496-4214. I'll take everything off your hands.
Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD)
Art & Design, Film, Graphic Design · Closed 2018
The Santa Fe University of Art and Design closed permanently in 2018. Its campus had a long history: it grew out of the College of Santa Fe, which closed in 2009, before Laureate Education backed its reopening and rebranding as SFUAD in 2010. The 2018 closure was abrupt and painful for students and faculty, and it left a generation of alumni holding libraries from programs that no longer exist at any institution in New Mexico.
This matters for book donations because the material SFUAD alumni own is increasingly difficult to replace. When an art and design program closes, the specific textbooks, studio references, and course readers that faculty assigned don't get reprinted or updated. They just become scarce. An SFUAD graduate's collection of graphic design textbooks from 2012 might include editions and titles that no bookstore stocks and no publisher currently offers. That scarcity creates real value in the used market, and it makes these collections worth handling carefully.
Film and Moving Image Arts
SFUAD's film program was one of its strongest offerings, and the film studies libraries that alumni carry reflect a serious engagement with cinema history, theory, and practice. Screenwriting references, cinematography manuals, film theory texts from Eisenstein through Bordwell, histories of world cinema, and the reference books on film editing, sound design, and production management that working filmmakers actually use. The program drew serious students from across the country.
Film books are a strong category for me because the audience extends well beyond current students. Working filmmakers, cinephiles, media studies programs at other institutions, and collectors of film history all compete for good-condition film reference material. If you went through SFUAD's film program and you're ready to let go of some or all of your film library, we'd love to see what you have.
Graphic Design and Digital Arts
The graphic design program at SFUAD produced graduates who own typography references, color theory texts, branding and identity guides, layout and composition manuals, and the specific software-adjacent reference books (Adobe Creative Suite guides, UX design texts, web design fundamentals) that design education requires. These books age in interesting ways — the core principles of typography and color theory don't change, even as specific software tools evolve. A solid graphic design fundamentals textbook from 2014 is still perfectly useful to a design student in 2026.
The digital arts books are more time-sensitive, but even there, the foundational texts on animation principles, 3D modeling concepts, and digital illustration techniques retain their usefulness longer than you might expect. I sort all of this carefully and price according to current market demand.
Studio Arts and Art History
The studio arts and art history collections from SFUAD alumni mirror what I see from art students everywhere — technique books, art history surveys, artist monographs, exhibition catalogs — but with a Santa Fe inflection. Santa Fe's identity as an art capital means that SFUAD students were often working alongside and studying alongside the broader Santa Fe arts community. Their personal libraries reflect that proximity: catalogs from local galleries, books on the Santa Fe art market, monographs on artists working in the region, and the broader Southwestern art tradition.
If you're an SFUAD alumnus anywhere in New Mexico — or anywhere in the country — and you've been holding onto books from your time at the school, I want them. For Santa Fe and Albuquerque area alumni, I'll pick up in person. For anyone farther afield, my mailing address is 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A, Albuquerque, NM 87107. USPS Media Mail makes shipping books affordable. Call or text 702-496-4214 if you have questions about what you have or how to get it to me.
The Santa Fe–Albuquerque Corridor: How Pickup Works
Santa Fe is about 60 miles north of Albuquerque on I-25, and the drive takes roughly an hour depending on traffic and construction. It's one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the state — tens of thousands of people commute, shop, and move between the two cities every day. I make regular runs up and down this corridor, and Santa Fe pickups are a routine part of the operation.
Large Collections: I Come to You
If you have a substantial collection — a faculty office, a personal library of several hundred books, multiple boxes of textbooks from multiple semesters — I'll drive up to Santa Fe and pick up in person. I handle all the loading. You don't need to box anything, organize anything, or carry anything. Just point me to the books and I'll take it from there. Scheduling is usually within a few days, sometimes sooner. Text 702-496-4214 with your address and a rough description.
Small Collections: Drop Off or Mail
For a box or two, you've got options. If you're ever heading to Albuquerque — for work, shopping, a Costco run, a doctor's appointment — my 24/7 drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE is always available. No appointment, no interaction needed. Just leave the books at the bin. Or mail them: USPS Media Mail is designed for books and keeps the cost low. Ship to New Mexico Literacy Project, 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A, Albuquerque, NM 87107.
End-of-Semester Timing
The end of each semester — December and May — produces a surge of textbook donations from students at all three active Santa Fe institutions. I increase my Santa Fe corridor runs during these periods to keep up with demand. If you're a student wrapping up the semester and you want to get rid of books before you move or go home for the break, reach out early. Scheduling fills up fast during the last two weeks of the semester. The sooner you text, the sooner I can get to you.
Faculty and Staff
Retiring faculty, departing adjuncts, and staff members cleaning out offices — I handle these pickups with extra care. Academic libraries accumulated over a career deserve more than a dumpster. I sort everything by hand, identify titles with scholarly or collector value, and make sure the books that matter most end up in the right hands. If you're a faculty member at IAIA, St. John's, or SFCC and you're looking to clear your office or your home library, we'd be glad to help.
Beyond the Campuses: Santa Fe's Broader Book Culture
The four institutions described above aren't the only source of book donations in Santa Fe. The city's broader literary culture generates its own steady stream of material. Santa Fe is home to writers, editors, publishers, literary agents, and readers whose personal libraries rival those of any small college. The concentration of creative and intellectual talent in a city of 90,000 people is remarkable, and it shows up on bookshelves everywhere.
Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse on Galisteo Street has been a hub of Santa Fe's literary scene for decades, hosting readings, signings, and events that draw local and national authors. Op.Cit. Books on Cerrillos Road deals in used and rare books with a particular strength in Southwestern and Western Americana. The Santa Fe literary festival scene — including Lit Fest Santa Fe and various poetry series — attracts writers and readers who accumulate libraries of signed editions, advance reading copies, and limited-edition publications that are genuinely collectible.
When someone in Santa Fe decides to downsize their personal library — whether they're moving to a smaller home, clearing out a deceased family member's estate, or simply acknowledging that they've run out of shelf space — the collection they're offering is often extraordinary. I've picked up from retired editors with publisher's collections spanning decades. From writers whose shelves hold signed copies of every major literary release of the past thirty years. From art collectors whose book collections match their wall collections in depth and seriousness.
If you're in Santa Fe and you have books — any quantity, any subject, any condition — I want to talk to you. Whether it's a college textbook collection or a lifetime personal library, the New Mexico Literacy Project will handle it right. Call or text 702-496-4214.
What I Accept from Santa Fe Donors
The short answer is: everything. But here's the detailed breakdown so you know exactly what I take and what happens to it.
Textbooks — Any Edition, Any Condition
Current editions go directly to my resale channels where they reach students who need affordable copies. Previous editions get donated to students, tutoring programs, and community organizations. Heavily annotated copies are fine — in fact, some buyers prefer them for the study notes. Damaged textbooks are recycled rather than landfilled. I take them all.
Literature, Philosophy, and Humanities
This is where St. John's and IAIA collections really shine. First editions and signed copies of significant literary works have collector value that I know how to realize. Standard reading copies of canonical texts find new readers through my Little Free Library restocking, community donations, and direct sales. Poetry collections, literary criticism, philosophy monographs, history texts — all of it is welcome.
Art Books, Catalogs, and Monographs
Art books are heavy and expensive to produce, which means they hold resale value well. Exhibition catalogs, artist monographs, technique manuals, art history surveys, and the glossy oversized volumes that art students and collectors accumulate — I take all of it and I know the market for it. Santa Fe art books in particular have regional collector interest that extends well beyond the state.
Nursing, Health Sciences, and Trade References
SFCC's programs generate a steady supply of professional and technical references. I handle nursing textbooks, EMT manuals, electrical codebooks, welding references, construction guides, and the full range of workforce-development material. Current editions are my fastest-moving category. Older editions still have value for supplementary study and reference.
Indigenous Literature and Native Arts References
IAIA-origin collections and the broader Santa Fe inventory of Indigenous-focused books receive special attention in my sorting process. I understand the collector market for Indigenous literary first editions, limited-run publications from Native presses, MoCNA catalogs, and the broader scholarly literature on Native arts and culture. These titles are sorted individually and routed to the channels where they'll reach the right buyers and readers.
Film, Design, and Digital Media
SFUAD alumni hold the bulk of these collections in the Santa Fe area, but working creatives throughout the city also accumulate film, design, and digital media references. Screenwriting books, typography references, color theory texts, UX guides, animation manuals, photography techniques — the creative economy of Santa Fe means these books are scattered across private shelves throughout the city, and I'm glad to consolidate them.
What Happens to Your Santa Fe Book Donations
Every book that comes into my warehouse at 5445 Edith Blvd NE gets sorted by hand. I don't use automated systems or generic donation bins. Each title is evaluated individually for condition, edition, market demand, and regional significance. The sorting process determines where each book goes next.
Books with resale value go to my online sales channels — primarily Amazon and eBay, where I maintain active storefronts. This is how the operation sustains itself. The revenue from selling books with market value is what makes the free pickups possible. As a for-profit business, NMLP doesn't rely on grants or fundraising — the resale model is what keeps the free pickup running.
Readable books without significant resale value I try to rehome where I can. I restock Little Free Libraries across Albuquerque and the surrounding area, and I pass children's and general-interest titles to APS Title I schools. A used SFCC psychology textbook might not have resale value, but it's still useful to a student at another institution who can't afford the new edition.
Regionally significant titles are preserved in the NMLP archive. I maintain a growing collection of New Mexico-specific books, Indigenous literature, Santa Fe art catalogs, and other material with historical and cultural significance. Some of this material goes to my collector channels; some I hold for researchers and institutions.
Damaged and unsalvageable material is recycled responsibly. Nothing gets landfilled. Even books that are too damaged to read or sell have value as paper recycling. I track my recycling metrics and ensure that the environmental impact of my operation is as small as possible.
Preparing Your Santa Fe Textbook Donation
You don't need to do much. Seriously. I handle the sorting, the evaluation, and the logistics. But if you want to make the process smoother, here's what helps.
You Don't Need to Sort
Don't spend time organizing books by subject, condition, or value. I do this professionally, and I'll sort everything at the warehouse. If your books are already on shelves, I'll take them off the shelves. If they're in boxes, I'll carry the boxes. If they're in piles on the floor, I'll deal with the piles. The less work you do before I arrive, the more honest assessment I can give — we'd rather see a collection in its natural state than have someone pre-sort and accidentally separate related items.
let me know What Came From Where
If you can tell me which books are from your IAIA MFA program versus your personal reading, or which shelf is your St. John's seminar library versus your non-curricular collection, that context helps me sort more effectively. It's not required, but it's useful. The provenance of academic collections — knowing that a set of philosophy books was used in actual St. John's seminars, for instance — can add value in the collector market.
Textbook Editions Matter But Aren't Dealbreakers
If you know the edition numbers of your textbooks, that information helps me assess value before I arrive. Current editions of nursing, business, and education textbooks are the highest-demand category. But previous editions are still useful and still welcome. Don't let the fact that your anatomy textbook is two editions behind stop you from donating it — someone needs it.
Condition Is What It Is
Highlighted, annotated, coffee-stained, dog-eared, spine-cracked — I take books in any condition. Perfect copies go to my resale channels. Well-loved copies go to readers who care about content, not condition. Damaged copies get recycled. Don't apologize for the state of your books and don't throw anything away before I see it. What you think is worthless might surprise you.
Ready to schedule? Call or text 702-496-4214. tell me your Santa Fe address (or wherever the books are), roughly how many books you have, and whether they're from a specific institution or program. I'll get back to you quickly with a pickup time or alternative arrangements.
A Note on Santa Fe Faculty Libraries
A word directly to faculty members and their families, because faculty library donations are some of the most important work I do. Professors, tutors, and instructors at Santa Fe institutions accumulate libraries over the course of decades. These aren't just shelves of books — they're the physical record of an intellectual career. The monographs that shaped someone's research. The textbooks they assigned for twenty years. The conference proceedings, the review copies, the obscure journal issues, the dissertations from advisees. These libraries tell a story, and I treat them with the seriousness they deserve.
When a faculty member retires from IAIA, St. John's, or SFCC and needs to clear their office, or when a family is settling the estate of a deceased professor and the home library needs to be addressed, I want to be the first call. I sort academic libraries by hand, evaluating each title for scholarly value, collector interest, and practical usefulness. Scholarly monographs with active market value go to my online channels. Discipline-specific titles get donated to appropriate programs and students. Conference proceedings and specialized material get routed to researchers and institutions that can use them.
I've handled faculty libraries from universities across New Mexico, and I understand the mix of sentiment and practicality involved. You want the books to go somewhere meaningful, and you need the space cleared. I can do both. Call or text 702-496-4214 to discuss your situation.
The Mail-In Option for Santa Fe Donors
Not everyone can wait for a pickup, and not everyone is near enough to drop off at my Albuquerque location. The mail-in option exists for exactly these situations. USPS Media Mail is specifically designed for shipping books and educational materials, and it keeps costs manageable even for heavier shipments.
Ship to: New Mexico Literacy Project, 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A, Albuquerque, NM 87107.
This option is particularly useful for SFUAD alumni who may have left Santa Fe after the school closed and are now scattered across the state or the country. If you're sitting on a collection of art and design textbooks from a program that no longer exists, and you'd rather get them to someone who knows what they're worth than drop them at Goodwill, mail them to me. I understand the SFUAD catalog and I'll handle the collection appropriately.
It also works well for St. John's alumni from the Annapolis campus who've relocated to Santa Fe or anywhere in the Southwest. The Great Books curriculum is identical at both campuses, so the libraries are interchangeable. If you studied at Annapolis and you're in New Mexico now with your seminar library taking up space you need, the mail-in option or a pickup is equally available.
The 24/7 Drop Box
my drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE in Albuquerque is available around the clock, every day of the year. No appointment, no phone call, no waiting for someone to be there. Drive up, leave your books at the bin, and go. It's that simple.
For Santa Fe residents, the drop box is about an hour south on I-25. If you're heading to Albuquerque for any reason — a Costco run, a doctor's appointment, visiting family, catching a flight at the Sunport — you can swing by on the way. The location is just off I-25, making it easy to incorporate into any trip down the corridor.
The drop box accepts books, media (CDs, DVDs, vinyl records), and small electronics. For large donations that won't fit in the bin, call or text 702-496-4214 and I'll schedule a proper pickup instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you pick up textbooks from Santa Fe or only Albuquerque?
Are IAIA textbooks and Indigenous literature worth anything?
I graduated from St. John's College and have my entire seminar library. Is that useful?
I have old nursing and trade textbooks from SFCC. Are those too outdated to donate?
I went to the Santa Fe University of Art and Design before it closed. Do you want those books?
Can I mail books instead of waiting for a pickup?
Do you take faculty office libraries from Santa Fe institutions?
What's the 24/7 drop box and where is it?
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Your Santa Fe Books Deserve Better Than a Dumpster
Whether it's a shelf of IAIA poetry, a complete St. John's seminar library, a stack of SFCC nursing texts, or a box of SFUAD art books — I'll take everything and make sure each title reaches the right destination.
5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A, Albuquerque, NM 87107