UNM & Albuquerque college-town pickup
You’re moving out of a UNM dorm at end of semester. You’re an international student leaving the country and can’t ship the books home. You’re a faculty member retiring and the office shelves have to go. You’re a parent helping a graduating student clear out before move-out weekend. Free donation pickup is the easy path. I take the whole stack — textbooks, paperbacks, course readers, anything — and the books re-enter circulation through APS Title I schools, the UNM Children’s Hospital reading program, Little Free Libraries throughout the metro, and the resale margin that funds the operation. Easier than the campus buyback line during finals week, faster than Amazon trade-in shipping, and better than the dorm dumpster.
UNM has roughly twenty-two thousand students. Two big book turnover events a year, plus a smaller summer-term cycle. Move-out weekends in May and December produce a tidal wave of books that mostly land in the Coronado dumpster, the Hokona dumpster, and the dorm-area Goodwill bins. The actually-valuable books are usually mixed in, but the people throwing them away don’t know which is which. I’m trying to redirect that flow into circulation through donation channels — not through me paying retail for textbooks.
If you’re a student trying to get the most for your books at the end of the semester, this page tells you which channel pays the most for which kind of book — or see the end-of-semester textbook guide for a step-by-step walkthrough. If you’re an international student leaving for the summer or graduating, jump to the section on whole-library pickups. If you’re a faculty member or department administrator, jump to the faculty-library section. The phone number is the same either way: text 702-496-4214 to schedule free donation pickup.
Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
There are four practical channels for unloading UNM textbooks at the end of a semester. Each is best for a different kind of book. Knowing which is which is most of the game. For a side-by-side comparison of all the options, see the college textbook buyback comparison.
Best for: currently-required STEM textbooks the bookstore is confident will be required next semester. Calculus, intro chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, accounting, statistics, anatomy.
Pays: roughly 25-50% of new price for the small fraction of books they're confident about; near-zero for everything else.
Tradeoffs: on-campus, fast, no shipping. But you only get the offer for a small subset of your shelf, and the line during finals week is long.
Best for: recent-edition mass-market textbooks Amazon has algorithmically tagged as in-demand.
Pays: Amazon gift card credit. Often common reading copy range per book when accepted.
Tradeoffs: Pays in store credit, not cash. Declines a lot of books for opaque reasons. You ship; Amazon pays shipping but it takes a week.
Best for: books the buyback declined, books Amazon declined, older editions, electives, supplementary readings, foreign-language textbooks, the entire stack you don’t want to deal with. Anything you’d otherwise put in the dorm-area dumpster.
Pays: nothing. NMLP is a donation operation. I keep the books moving in the metro — resellable ones go on Amazon, in-demand titles route to APS Title I and the UNM Children’s Hospital reading program, the rest gets paper-recycled.
Tradeoffs: no cash. You get free pickup, the books don’t end up in a dumpster, and you’re done in a single text. For one or two valuable books, channels 1, 2, or 4 will pay you. For a stack of fifteen plus the boxes of books you’ve been meaning to deal with, this is the path.
Best for: single high-demand textbooks where you can find a UNM student in the same major taking the same course next semester.
Pays: the highest possible price, sometimes 70% of new.
Tradeoffs: takes weeks to find a buyer, requires meeting in person, doesn't scale beyond two or three books. If you have a stack of fifteen by Thursday, this won't work in time.
For a single STEM textbook from a current-semester required course: try the UNM Bookstore buyback first. If they offer something close to half new price, take it.
For a single non-STEM textbook or anything older than the most recent edition: try Amazon trade-in. If they accept it for more than modest value, take it.
For everything the bookstore and Amazon both decline: text me. Free donation pickup, no payment, no negotiation. The whole stack goes in one trip and the books stay in circulation through APS Title I, the UNM Children’s Hospital reading program, and the resale channels that fund the operation.
For a stack of 15-50 books at end of semester: skip the bookstore line and Amazon shipping queue, text me a photo of each shelf, and I’ll come do the whole stack in one trip on a donation basis.
For a whole semester’s worth of books from an international student or graduating student leaving the country: text me with photos, address, and your timeline. donation pickups are possible during finals weeks.
Engineering textbooks (UNM ECE, ME, CE, BME, CHEM-E). The current-edition required textbooks for the core engineering sequence have meaningful used-market value: the mid-range collectible zone for current editions, the common reading copy to mid-range zone for recent prior editions. Older engineering textbooks (Stewart Calculus, classic Sedra-Smith, classic Oppenheim) sometimes have collector value too. The buyback rarely pays well for engineering texts because demand is harder to predict.
Premed and biology textbooks (UNM Health Sciences). Anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, microbiology textbooks all have strong used-market demand. Current-edition Netter, Moore Clinically Oriented Anatomy, Goodman & Gilman, Robbins Pathology — all the mid-range collectible zone used. Older editions still sell at common reading copy range. The buyback usually offers something competitive on these only if a UNM HSC course is reusing the exact same edition. See the medical and nursing textbook donations page for more on health-sciences titles.
Math textbooks. The Stewart calculus series, Hass-Weir-Thomas, Strang Linear Algebra, Lay Linear Algebra, Rudin Real Analysis (the famous "Baby Rudin"), Munkres Topology — these all have steady used demand and sell well year-round. International student editions priced lower than US editions are a complicated case; I evaluate them individually.
Computer science textbooks. CLRS Introduction to Algorithms, Sipser Theory of Computation, Tanenbaum Operating Systems, Dragon Book Compilers, Knuth The Art of Computer Programming — these are the ones I always pull aside in any UNM library because they hold value for a decade or longer. Current editions are solid mid-range collectible value older first editions are sometimes much higher.
Business and accounting textbooks. Lower demand than STEM. Most fall into the "buyback if they want it, otherwise Amazon trade-in if they accept it, otherwise text me" tier.
Humanities textbooks and readers. Anthologies, photocopied course packets, custom UNM editions are usually worth nothing on the open market. The exception is signed first editions of literary works — those are pillar territory; I have 59 author authentication pillars covering most of the canon. If you have a personal library that includes inscribed copies, those are worth flagging separately.
International / foreign-language textbooks. Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, Arabic, Portuguese textbooks at UNM cycle through international students and faculty. Some have significant used-market value (Hugo Carrillo readers, classic anthologies of regional literature) and some are worthless. I evaluate individually.
Required reading novels and plays from English / literature courses. If they're new copies in good condition, they sell for modest value each. If they're heavily marked up, they're recycle-only.
Older edition textbooks (2+ editions back). The buyback declines these. Amazon often declines these. But the open used market has steady demand for prior-edition copies at common reading copy range especially in subjects where the content barely changes (calculus, classical mechanics, organic chemistry). This is where I'm consistently the best outlet in the metro.
Course readers, photocopied packets, custom-bound UNM-specific editions. Generally worth nothing in resale. I take them as donations and they go to recycling. No need to feel bad about it.
Twelve textbooks, one weekend to clear them, dorm move-out is Friday. Take the three current-edition STEM books to the UNM Bookstore for buyback. Text me the rest. pickup, donation by default; if anything's worth a quote I'll tell you up front.
Four years of textbooks plus reference books and personal-collection novels. About 80-150 volumes total. I do these regularly. Walkthrough first to pull the high-value items, then full-pickup as part of the same regional run.
Whole semester or whole degree's books, can't fit in luggage, flight in 72 hours. Most common in May and December. Text photos and address; pickup is usually possible.
Forty years of academic-press books, journal runs, and personal-collection signed copies. I work with a lot of UNM emeriti. The signed and inscribed copies in those libraries are usually the trophies; I sort it.
A department reshuffles space and there's a closet full of decades-old textbooks, journal volumes, and instructor copies. Whole-closet pickup, no minimum, no maximum. UNM, CNM, and area community college departments all qualify.
Your roommate moved out and left a stack. They're not yours; you don't want to deal with reselling them. Text me, I'll take the whole stack at no cost. You can keep any payment if you want or roll it into your own pickup.
Text 702-496-4214 with photos of your books. I'll have a quote back the. Free pickup anywhere in the Albuquerque metro.