Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred
The Weight of a Teaching Career in Books
Teachers accumulate books like no other profession. After twenty-five or thirty years in the classroom, the numbers are staggering, and they sneak up on you. A few picture books bought at the Scholastic Book Fair your first year. A class set of chapter books you purchased out of pocket because the district budget ran out in November. Read-alouds you collected one or two at a time over an entire decade. Professional development titles from summer institutes. Curriculum guides from three different adopted programs. Reference books you kept meaning to return to the school library but never did. Leveled readers from that guided reading workshop in 2004. The stack of novels a retiring colleague handed you in the hallway and said she could not bring herself to throw away.
It adds up. I have picked up collections from retiring Albuquerque teachers that filled the entire back of a cargo van. One APS elementary teacher I worked with in the Northeast Heights had accumulated over two thousand volumes across her career — and she was genuinely surprised by the number. She thought it was maybe three hundred. That is the nature of a classroom library: it grows slowly, a few books at a time, over decades, and you never take a real inventory because the books are tools, not a collection. They live on shelves and in bins and in the closet and on top of the filing cabinet and in three boxes you brought home two summers ago that are now in the garage.
The emotional dimension is real, and I want to acknowledge that clearly before I get into the logistics. Every book in that classroom library connects to something. The copy of "Bridge to Terabithia" that made an entire fifth-grade class cry in 2011. The picture book you read every single first day of school for twenty years. The chapter book series that a struggling reader latched onto and then devoured six volumes of in a month. Those memories are embedded in the objects, and the idea of putting those books in a dumpster feels wrong because it is wrong. Those books earned their keep, and they deserve a better ending than a landfill.
At the same time, you are retiring. You do not have room for two thousand books. Your spouse has been patient, but nobody needs thirty copies of "Number the Stars" in a two-bedroom house. The school is asking you to clear out your classroom by a certain date. And the honest reality is that most of those books, as individual objects, are not worth very much money. A paperback chapter book that has been through fifteen years of student hands is not going to sell for anything on the open market. But it still has value as a reading copy — a child somewhere needs it. The trick is finding an off-ramp that respects the books, respects your time, and does not require you to sort two thousand volumes into individual piles while simultaneously managing retirement paperwork and the emotional weight of leaving a career.
That is what this guide is for. I have handled classroom library pickups from retiring teachers across APS and from districts in Rio Rancho, Los Lunas, Santa Fe, and beyond. The patterns are remarkably consistent. The feelings are consistent too. I want to walk you through every aspect of this process — from the practical (what happens to the books, how the pickup works, whether anything has collector value) to the financial (what the tax situation actually is, with full transparency) to the logistical (summer timing, school access, how many boxes you are actually dealing with). By the end of this guide, you should have a clear plan and no lingering guilt about what happens to the library you built.
APS Retirement and Classroom Libraries
Albuquerque Public Schools is the largest district in New Mexico — roughly 74,000 students across more than 140 schools. Every year, a significant number of APS teachers retire, and every single one of them faces the same question: what do I do with the classroom library I built over my career? The district does not have a clear, well-publicized policy for handling personal classroom libraries at retirement, because the situation is inherently complicated. Some of those books belong to the district. Some belong to the teacher. And a large gray area sits in between.
Here is how it typically breaks down. Books purchased with district funds, Title I money, or school-allocated budgets are district property. That is clear on paper, though in practice the tracking is loose. APS does not maintain a centralized inventory of individual classroom library books. A class set of novels purchased through a curriculum adoption in 2009 is technically district property, but no one is checking serial numbers. Books purchased with the teacher's personal money — which, for most teachers I work with, represents the majority of their classroom library — are personal property. The teacher bought them at Barnes and Noble, at the Scholastic warehouse sale, at Half Price Books, at the Friends of the Library sale, or online. Those books belong to the teacher, full stop.
The gray area covers things like Scholastic Book Fair bonus points, DonorsChoose grants, parent-funded classroom purchases, book donations from families, and the inherited library from the teacher who retired from that classroom before you. When a colleague leaves and says "take whatever you want from my shelves," those books enter a zone where ownership gets fuzzy. In practice, most APS administrators treat everything on the teacher's shelves as the teacher's responsibility at retirement. The principal wants the room cleared for the incoming teacher. Nobody is going to audit your shelves. The practical question is not who owns the books — it is what happens to them.
What happens, more often than anyone wants to admit, is the dumpster. I have talked to retired APS teachers who describe the same scene: late June, the classroom needs to be cleared, nobody has a plan, and the custodial staff brings a rolling dumpster to the hallway. Books, manipulatives, posters, years of carefully curated materials — into the bin. Some teachers bring books home and store them in the garage, where they sit in boxes for five years before eventually being thrown away anyway. Others donate to Goodwill or the library book sale, which are fine options for reading copies but will not identify anything collectible in the pile. A few teachers try to sell books individually on Facebook Marketplace or at a garage sale, which is enormously time-consuming for minimal return.
The core problem is that nobody has offered retiring teachers one place that takes all of it. The district does not want the books — they have their own surplus and storage issues. The incoming teacher may want some of them but not all of them. Goodwill takes books by the bag but does not evaluate them individually. And teachers, understandably, do not have the time or expertise to sort a thousand books into "keep," "sell," "donate," and "recycle" piles during the busiest and most emotional week of their career transition.
This is not unique to APS. I hear the same story from teachers in Rio Rancho Public Schools, Los Lunas, Belen, Moriarty-Edgewood, Bernalillo, and Santa Fe. The district scale varies, but the fundamental dynamic is identical: teacher accumulates books over decades, retirement arrives, and there is no institutional mechanism for dealing with the library responsibly. NMLP exists to fill that gap. I take everything, I sort it at the warehouse, and every book gets individually assessed. The teacher does not have to decide what is worth keeping and what is not. That is my job.
Which Classroom Books Have Collector Value
This is the section that surprises people, and it is the reason I assess every single book individually rather than treating a classroom library as bulk donation material. The vast majority of books in a retiring teacher's collection — probably ninety percent or more — are common reading copies with minimal individual resale value. A well-used paperback of "Holes" by Louis Sachar is a great book, but it is not a collectible. That said, the remaining fraction can contain genuinely valuable items, and teachers are the last people in the world to realize it because they bought these books to be read, not collected.
First editions of children's literature are the primary category. The children's book market has a robust collector base, and first printings of now-classic titles command serious attention. I am not going to quote specific dollar amounts — that is not how I operate, and values fluctuate with condition and market timing — but I can tell you the categories to be aware of. Early printings of the Harry Potter series, particularly the first three titles in their original publisher bindings, are consistently sought after. The key is distinguishing a true first printing from a later printing or a book club edition, and the identification methods are specific to each publisher. Teachers who were buying books in the late 1990s and early 2000s may have first printings of Sorcerer's Stone or Chamber of Secrets on their shelves without knowing it.
Maurice Sendak is another name that matters. A first printing of "Where the Wild Things Are" in the original dust jacket, in decent condition, is a significant book. Teachers who were working in the 1960s or 1970s and bought Sendak titles new — or inherited them from older colleagues — sometimes have first printings sitting in classroom bins. The same applies to Shel Silverstein. A first edition, first printing of "The Giving Tree" with the original dust jacket is collectible. "Where the Sidewalk Ends" and "A Light in the Attic" in early printings carry value that would surprise most people who think of them as everyday children's books.
Eric Carle first printings — particularly "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" in its original World Publishing edition — are rare and sought after. Dr. Seuss first editions from the 1950s and 1960s are consistently valuable, though condition matters enormously. "The Cat in the Hat" in a first printing with the original dust jacket is not something you find every day, but teachers who have been in the profession for forty years occasionally have titles from that era. Roald Dahl first editions, Judy Blume first editions, Beverly Cleary first editions — the pattern holds across the major names in children's literature. If the book was published before about 1985 and you have what might be an early copy, it is worth having someone who knows the identification marks take a look.
Signed copies are the second major category. Teachers interact with authors more than almost any other group of adults. Author visits to schools are common, and teachers attend conferences, workshops, and book festivals where authors sign copies. A signed first edition of a children's book by a major author is more valuable than an unsigned copy, sometimes significantly so. If you attended an NCTE conference in the 1990s and had Lois Lowry sign your copy of "The Giver," or if Jerry Spinelli visited your school and signed copies of "Maniac Magee," those signed books are worth individual attention. The signature does not have to be personalized to you — in fact, a clean signature without a personal inscription is generally more desirable to collectors — but even personalized copies carry a premium over unsigned ones. For more on how I evaluate signatures and identify first printings, see my first edition identification guide.
Caldecott and Newbery Medal winners in first printings deserve special mention. The award sticker on the cover is often added after the medal is announced, which means a true first printing of a Caldecott winner typically does not have the gold medal sticker — it predates the award. This is counterintuitive, but a copy without the sticker can actually be more desirable to collectors than one with it, because the absence of the sticker confirms an earlier printing. Teachers sometimes have pre-award copies they purchased when the book first came out, before anyone knew it would win. Those are worth checking.
Out-of-print educational materials are an underappreciated category. Certain curriculum programs from the 1980s and 1990s that were widely used and then discontinued still have demand from homeschool families, alternative schools, and collectors of educational history. Specific reading programs, math manipulative sets with their original teacher guides, and vintage science curriculum kits occasionally surface in teacher collections and have a small but real market. This is not a high-value category in most cases, but it is another reason to have someone who knows the landscape look at everything rather than sending it all to Goodwill unsorted.
For a deeper understanding of how condition affects value in all of these categories, my book condition grading guide covers the standards I use. And if you are curious whether your personal library (not just the classroom portion) might contain hidden value, my library valuation page walks through the process.
Children's Literature First Editions That Surprise People
I want to spend some time on this because it is the single most common source of hidden value in teacher collections, and it is also the area where teachers are most likely to have no idea what they are sitting on. The children's book collecting market is large, well-established, and quietly active. Collectors pay attention to specific printings, specific states of dust jackets, and specific publisher indicators that the average person — including the average teacher — would never notice. That gap between what a teacher sees (a beloved read-aloud) and what a collector sees (a verifiable first printing in collectible condition) is where real value hides.
Let me walk through some of the titles that consistently surprise the teachers I work with. "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak, published by Harper and Row in 1963, is one of the most collected children's books in existence. A first edition in its original dust jacket, in good condition, is a genuinely significant book. The identification is specific: you are looking at the copyright page for the absence of later printing indicators, and you are looking at the dust jacket for specific price and publisher details that changed in subsequent printings. Most teachers do not have a true first of this book — it has been in continuous print for over sixty years and millions of copies exist — but teachers who inherited classroom libraries from colleagues who were teaching in the 1960s sometimes have early printings they never examined closely.
"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White, first published by Harper and Brothers in 1952 with illustrations by Garth Williams, is another book that teachers sometimes have in early printings without realizing it. The first edition has specific characteristics on the copyright page and the dust jacket that distinguish it from the many subsequent printings. A teacher who inherited a classroom set that included a hardcover from the 1950s might have a first-edition copy mixed in with later printings. It is the kind of thing you would never notice unless you knew what to look for.
The Harry Potter series deserves its own discussion because it is the most common source of "I had no idea" moments in teacher collections. The American first edition of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," published by Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic) in 1998, exists in relatively small numbers compared to the later print runs. The first printing can be identified by the complete number line on the copyright page going down to "1" and by specific binding and jacket details. Teachers who were buying books for their classroom libraries in 1998 and 1999, before the Harry Potter phenomenon fully erupted, sometimes purchased first-printing copies at their local bookstore. Those copies have been sitting on classroom shelves for nearly three decades, read by hundreds of students, and the teacher has no idea the specific printing matters.
The UK first edition — "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," published by Bloomsbury in 1997 — is in a different league entirely. Only five hundred copies were printed in the true first printing, and most went to libraries. If a teacher somehow has a Bloomsbury first printing of Philosopher's Stone, that is an extraordinary find. It is unlikely in a New Mexico classroom, but I mention it because I have learned never to say never. Books travel, and classroom libraries absorb donations from families who may have connections anywhere in the world.
"The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein, first published by Harper and Row in 1964, is common in classroom libraries and uncommon in first printings. The distinction matters. A later printing of "The Giving Tree" in its familiar green binding is a reading copy worth what any used children's book is worth. A first printing with the original dust jacket in good condition is a different object entirely. Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends" (1974) and "A Light in the Attic" (1981) follow the same pattern — later printings are everywhere, first printings are collectible.
Roald Dahl first editions published by Alfred A. Knopf in the United States are another consistent find in teacher collections. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (1964), "James and the Giant Peach" (1961), "Fantastic Mr Fox" (1970), "The BFG" (1982), "Matilda" (1988) — all of these exist in first printings that are genuinely collectible. A teacher who was buying Dahl novels new in the 1980s for classroom read-alouds may have first printings of "The BFG," "The Witches," and "Matilda" without ever having checked.
I could continue this list through Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Madeleine L'Engle, Katherine Paterson, S.E. Hinton, Lois Lowry, and dozens of other names that are staples of classroom libraries. The point is not to make you anxious about what you might be giving away — the point is to make the case for having every book individually assessed before any of them leave your hands. That is what I do. Every single book, checked against my identification knowledge and current market data. The ones that turn out to be common reading copies go to community programs where they will be read again. The ones that turn out to be collectible are handled accordingly. You do not have to know which is which — that is my job.
The NMLP Donation Process for Teachers
The process is simple, and I designed it to be simple because teachers at the end of a career have enough complexity in their lives without adding a complicated book-disposal procedure. Here is how it works, step by step.
Step one: call or text 702-496-4214. That is my direct number — Josh Eldred, the owner-operator of NMLP. There is no phone tree, no receptionist, no voicemail maze. You will either reach me directly or get a text back as soon as I am able. Tell me you are a retiring teacher, roughly how many books you think you have (your estimate will almost certainly be low, and that is fine), and where the books are — still at the school, already at your home, split between both, or in your garage in boxes from the last three summers.
Step two: I schedule the pickup. If the books are at school, I coordinate with you and the front office to pick a time when building access works and I can park near a loading area. Summer is ideal — June and July are my busiest months for teacher pickups because that is when classroom cleanouts happen. If the books are at your home, I schedule a time that works for your calendar. I come to you. You do not haul boxes anywhere.
Step three: I show up with a vehicle and do all the carrying. This is not a drop-off situation where you have to load your car and drive across town. I come to your classroom or your house, I bring the van or truck depending on volume, and I load everything myself. If you want to walk me through the collection and tell me the stories behind specific books, I genuinely enjoy that — I learn something every time. If you want to hand me the keys and go get coffee while I work, that is fine too. Either way, every book comes with me.
Step four: everything goes to the warehouse for individual assessment. This is the part that distinguishes NMLP from other options. The books do not go into a donation bin to be sold by the pound. They do not go onto a shelf at a thrift store where a volunteer prices everything at two dollars. Every book gets individually examined at my warehouse on Edith Blvd in Albuquerque. I check for first editions, first printings, signed copies, out-of-print titles with collector demand, and anything else that distinguishes a specific copy from the millions of common copies in circulation. This takes time — a large teacher collection might take several days to fully process — but it is the only way to ensure that nothing of value slips through.
Step five: books go to their appropriate destinations. Collectible items get listed and sold through my resale channels, which funds the entire operation. Good reading copies in children's literature go to community programs — Little Free Libraries, APS McKinney-Vento families, after-school programs, and partner organizations across Albuquerque. Professional development and curriculum books go where they can be used. And books that are too damaged to read go to paper recycling — not a dumpster, proper recycling.
Once we connect, I move the process along as quickly as my schedule allows, from your initial call to an empty classroom. If you are on a tight deadline — the school wants the room cleared by a specific date — tell me when you call and I will do my best to work with your timeline. I understand that retirement paperwork and end-of-year obligations do not wait, and I will not be the bottleneck if I can help it.
If you would rather drop books off yourself, I also operate a 24/7 outdoor drop bin at 5445 Edith Blvd NE, Unit A. It is available anytime — nights, weekends, holidays. But for a full classroom library, the free pickup is almost always the better option because I am talking about real volume and real weight.
Tax Implications of Donating Books as a Teacher
I need to be straightforward about this, and I would rather you hear it from me clearly than discover it later and feel misled. The New Mexico Literacy Project is a for-profit business. I am not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations to NMLP are not tax-deductible. Full stop. I will not bury this in fine print or dance around it with vague language. If tax deductibility is your primary concern, you should donate your books to a qualified 501(c)(3) organization instead — your local library's Friends group, a literacy nonprofit, or another organization that can provide a tax-deductible receipt.
Now, having said that clearly, let me explain why teachers still choose NMLP over tax-deductible alternatives, and why the value proposition holds up even without the deduction.
First, the practical reality of the tax deduction for most teachers. To claim a charitable deduction for donated property, you need to establish the fair market value of the items donated. For a box of used paperback children's books, the fair market value per book is very low — typically well under a dollar per book for common titles in used condition. If you donate five hundred common reading copies, the total deductible value might be a few hundred dollars, which for most tax situations translates to a modest tax savings. It is real money, and I am not dismissing it — but it is not the windfall that some people imagine when they think about deducting a large book donation.
Second, most tax-deductible donation outlets do not individually assess books. When you donate to Goodwill or a library book sale, the books are priced generically. A first printing of a collectible children's book gets a one-dollar sticker and goes on the sale table next to book club editions and battered paperbacks. Nobody checks. The collectible value that might exist in your classroom library is lost because nobody with the expertise to identify it ever looks at the individual books. With NMLP, every book gets that individual look. If your classroom library contains a first printing of a Newbery winner or a signed copy from an author visit, I will find it and handle it appropriately.
Third, the most common alternative is not a tax-deductible donation — it is throwing the books away. I hear this from teachers constantly. The Goodwill near the school is not accepting book donations this month. The library book sale is not until October and the classroom needs to be cleared now. The recycling center does not do pickups. And so the books go in the dumpster, which has zero tax benefit, zero community benefit, and zero chance of identifying anything collectible. When the realistic comparison is "NMLP pickup versus the dumpster," the value proposition is clear even without a tax deduction.
Fourth, readable copies donated through NMLP still reach students. They go to community programs, Little Free Libraries, and partner organizations. The distribution channel is different from a tax-deductible nonprofit, but the outcome for the books — reaching readers — is the same. Your classroom library continues serving students, which is what most retiring teachers actually care about more than the tax deduction anyway.
I believe in being completely transparent about this because trust matters more than a sale. If you want to split the difference — donate some books to a 501(c)(3) for the tax receipt and have NMLP pick up the rest — I am happy to help you figure out that division. And if you decide the tax deduction is your priority and you go with another organization entirely, no hard feelings. I would rather you make an informed decision than feel blindsided later.
Bulk Pickup for Classroom Libraries
The logistics of picking up a classroom library are different from a typical residential book pickup, and I want to address the specifics so you know what to expect. Schools have access constraints that homes do not — locked exterior doors, front-office check-in procedures, limited parking near loading areas, custodial staff schedules, and administrative oversight of who enters the building and when. None of these are obstacles, but they require a bit of coordination.
Summer is by far the best timing for school pickups. In June and July, buildings are more accessible, administrative staff is more flexible about scheduling, parking is easier, and teachers have time to be present for the pickup without competing with instruction hours. Most of the teacher pickups I handle happen in the two-week window after the last day of school, when teachers are cleaning out classrooms and the building is still staffed but students are gone. If you know your retirement date, contact me early — even a few weeks before the end of the school year — and I can get on the calendar before the rush.
If you have already brought the books home — and many retiring teachers have been hauling boxes home gradually over their last few years — the pickup is simpler. I come to your house, your garage, your storage unit, wherever the books ended up. No school access required, no front-office coordination, no loading-dock scheduling. Many teachers I work with have a combination situation: some books still at school, some at home. I handle both locations, sometimes on the same day if the geography works.
There is no minimum and no maximum. I have picked up a single box from a part-time teacher's desk and I have cleared entire classroom libraries that filled twenty-plus boxes. For a typical elementary teacher retiring after twenty-five years, you are probably looking at somewhere between eight and twenty boxes of books once everything is actually boxed up, plus whatever is on shelves that has not been boxed yet. I bring the boxes if you need them, and I do all the packing and carrying. Your only job is to be present (or have someone present) to let me into the building and point me to the right room.
For teachers who want to pre-sort — pulling out personal items, photos, gifts from students, anything they want to keep — I encourage that. Take your time separating the things that have sentimental value to you personally. I do not need a sorted library. I need a library, and I will sort it. But the items that matter to you personally should stay with you, and once books leave with me, I cannot guarantee I will be able to find a specific one later in the processing pipeline. If there is a specific book you want to keep — the copy of "Because of Winn-Dixie" that a student wrote you a note inside — pull it before I arrive.
For more details on my free book pickup service, including the areas I cover and what I accept, that page covers the general process. For teachers specifically, the key points are: I come to you, I do the carrying, there is no charge, and summer scheduling is my specialty.
How Donated Books Continue Serving Students
This is the part that matters most to the teachers I work with, and it is the part I can speak to most specifically because I see it happen every week. Books donated through NMLP do not disappear into a void. They follow specific, traceable paths back to readers — and for classroom books specifically, many of those readers are students.
Children's books in readable condition are the highest-priority category for community distribution. They go to APS McKinney-Vento families — students experiencing homelessness or housing instability who often have no books of their own at home. They go to Little Free Libraries across Albuquerque, where neighborhood kids can take a book and keep it. They go to after-school programs and community centers that maintain small libraries for participating children. A picture book that was read aloud to twenty years of kindergarten classes still has hundreds of reads left in it, and a child who gets to take it home and keep it is getting something genuinely valuable.
Chapter books and middle-grade fiction from classroom libraries are particularly useful in community distribution because they are exactly the age-appropriate titles that children in reading programs need. A teacher's classroom library is already curated for age appropriateness and reading level — that curation does not disappear when the books change hands. A set of Junie B. Jones books that served a second-grade classroom for fifteen years can serve a community reading program for another fifteen. The spines are cracked and the covers are soft, but the words are all still there.
Collectible items — the first editions, signed copies, and out-of-print titles I identified earlier — get listed and sold through my resale channels. This is the engine that funds everything else. The free pickup, the warehouse space, the hours of sorting, the fuel for the van, the community distribution — all of it is paid for by the collectible fraction of donations. When a first printing of a children's book that was sitting unrecognized in a classroom bin gets identified, properly described, and sold to a collector who will treasure it, that sale funds dozens of future pickups and hundreds of future book distributions. The economics are circular: collectibles fund the operation that places readable copies in children's hands.
Books that are too damaged to read — water damage, mold, heavy pest damage, pages falling out — go to paper recycling. Not a dumpster, not a landfill. Proper paper recycling with bindings stripped and non-paper components handled separately. This is a small fraction of what I receive from teacher collections, because teachers generally take care of their books. But some classroom damage is inevitable after decades of student use, and recycling is the responsible outcome for books that genuinely cannot be read again.
The net result is that a retiring teacher's classroom library gets distributed more thoughtfully through NMLP than through almost any other channel. The collectibles are identified and handled as collectibles. The readable copies go to children. The damaged copies are recycled responsibly. Nothing of value is missed, and nothing usable is wasted. Your thirty-year classroom library continues doing what it was always meant to do — putting books in the hands of kids who need them.
Professional Development and Education Books
Classroom libraries are not only children's books. Retiring teachers also accumulate a parallel collection that lives on a different shelf — the professional development and education theory books that accumulate across a career. These are the books from summer reading requirements, district-mandated PD sessions, graduate coursework, National Board certification study, and the titles your instructional coach recommended that one year. "The Book Whisperer." "Guided Reading" by Fountas and Pinnell. "Mosaic of Thought." "The Daily Five." "Visible Learning." "Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain." Every era of education reform generates a shelf of titles, and after three decades you have a small education library of your own.
The honest reality is that most professional development books have minimal individual resale value. Education theory moves fast, and a PD book from 2008 is, in many cases, yesterday's framework. District-mandated titles flood the used market every time an adopted program changes. Hundreds of copies of the same book hit Goodwill shelves simultaneously when a district pivots to a new approach, which drives the per-copy value toward zero. If you are expecting your professional library to have significant monetary value, I want to set that expectation correctly: for most titles, it will not.
That said, NMLP takes everything, and some titles surprise you. Early editions of foundational education texts — the titles that defined how American schools taught reading, writing, math, and science across specific eras — have a small but real collector market among education historians and academic researchers. Vintage curriculum guides from specific programs, particularly those associated with now-discontinued basal reading series or New Math initiatives, occasionally have value to the right buyer. University libraries and education departments sometimes seek out-of-print titles for their reference collections. The chances of any individual PD book being valuable are low, but across a thirty-year collection, the chances of something catching my attention are reasonable.
More importantly, many PD books still have practical value to working teachers. A copy of "The Book Whisperer" or "No More Independent Reading Without Support" is worth nothing to a collector but worth a great deal to a first-year teacher building their professional library on a starting salary. I route usable PD books to channels where working teachers can access them — teacher supply exchanges, new-teacher orientation programs, and partner organizations that support early-career educators. Your PD library may not generate resale income, but it can still serve the profession you are leaving.
Graduate school textbooks fall into a similar category. If you completed a master's degree or pursued National Board certification, you probably have a shelf of academic texts, research methodology books, and educational psychology titles. These rarely have resale value — the edition cycle in academic publishing is ruthless, and a textbook from 2010 has usually been superseded by the fifth or sixth edition — but I take them anyway and sort appropriately. If your collection includes education books alongside your classroom library, do not bother separating them. Bring everything, and I handle the sorting.
School Library Weeding and Deaccessioning
This section is for school librarians as much as retiring teachers, because the two situations often overlap. When a teacher retires and clears a classroom, the school library may simultaneously be going through its own weeding process — and the volume of discarded books from a single school can be substantial. APS librarians doing inventory and collection maintenance follow standard weeding criteria: outdated information (particularly in science and technology), damaged copies, titles with low circulation, duplicate copies that exceed demand, and materials that no longer align with curriculum standards. The result is boxes and boxes of deaccessioned books that need to go somewhere.
The "somewhere" question is harder than it should be. School districts have policies about discarding district property, and those policies vary. Some APS schools can donate deaccessioned library books directly. Others need to route them through a district surplus process. Still others have no clear process at all, and the books accumulate in storage rooms until someone decides to deal with them. I have been called into school libraries where the weeded books had been sitting in a back room for three years because nobody knew what to do with them and nobody wanted to be the person who threw them away.
NMLP serves as a partner for school library weeding projects. I take the entire weeded collection — every box, every cart, every shelf of deaccessioned material — and handle it the same way I handle everything else: individual assessment, with collectibles identified, readable copies distributed to community programs, and damaged material properly recycled. For a school librarian who has just spent weeks going through the collection and making painful decisions about what to cut, the relief of knowing that the weeded books are going to someone who will look at every single one rather than bulk-dumping them is real and meaningful.
The timing works naturally. School library weeding tends to happen in the spring and summer — the same window when retiring teachers are clearing classrooms. If a school is dealing with both a teacher retirement and a library weeding project, I can handle both in a single visit or in coordinated visits. One call, one contact, and the entire school gets its space back.
I want to note something specific about school library weeding: deaccessioned school library books sometimes include genuinely old titles that were part of the original collection when the building opened. An APS school built in the 1960s may have books in its library collection that have been there since day one. Those books, especially hardcover fiction and children's literature from the 1950s and 1960s with original dust jackets preserved inside protective library covers, can be collectible. The library stamps and pockets reduce value compared to unmarked copies, but ex-library copies of scarce titles still have a market. A school librarian doing a routine weed may not recognize that a particular title from the original collection is worth individual attention — which is another reason to send the weeded material to someone who will check every book rather than disposing of it in bulk.
Homeschool Families and Curriculum Turnover
Albuquerque has a significant and active homeschool community, and homeschool families face a version of the same accumulation problem that retiring teachers face — just on a different timeline. A homeschool family does not accumulate books over thirty years in a single classroom. Instead, they cycle through curricula every few years as their children progress through grade levels, as they shift pedagogical approaches, or as they discover that a particular program is not working for their family. The result is a steady turnover of educational materials: complete curriculum sets, workbooks (some partially completed, some unused), readers, textbooks, manipulatives, and supplementary books purchased to enrich whatever core program the family was using.
Homeschool curriculum has a complicated resale landscape. Some programs — particularly the well-known boxed curricula from publishers like Sonlight, Abeka, BJU Press, Saxon, and Classical Conversations — have an active resale market among other homeschool families. A complete Sonlight curriculum package for a specific grade level, in good condition with the instructor's guide and all components, holds its value reasonably well in the homeschool resale community. Other programs, particularly digital-hybrid curricula where the value is in the online platform rather than the physical materials, have much less resale potential for the physical components.
NMLP accepts homeschool materials of all kinds. I see a steady flow of curriculum sets, readers, and educational materials from Albuquerque homeschool families who are done with a particular level or approach and want the materials out of their house. The books and printed materials get individually assessed just like everything else. Complete curriculum sets in good condition that have active resale demand get listed. Individual books get evaluated on their own merits. Materials that are too worn or too program-specific to have outside value go to appropriate channels — sometimes a homeschool co-op, sometimes paper recycling if there is no realistic reuse path.
If you are a homeschool family in the Albuquerque area and you have outgrown a curriculum set, or your youngest has graduated and you are sitting on twelve years of accumulated educational materials, the process is the same as for a retiring teacher. Call or text 702-496-4214, and I will come pick it all up. No sorting required on your end. And if your homeschool library includes general children's literature alongside the curriculum materials — which it almost certainly does — that all comes too.
Your Classroom Library Deserves Better Than a Dumpster
You spent decades and thousands of your own dollars building that library. Let me make sure every book gets individually assessed and placed where it can do the most good. One call, one pickup, zero sorting on your end.
Josh Eldred, owner-operator. Direct line. No phone tree.
Questions from Retiring Teachers
Do you pick up from schools?
Yes. I pick up from schools across Albuquerque and statewide New Mexico. Summer is the ideal window — June and July are my busiest months for teacher pickups. I coordinate with you and the front office to schedule a time that works for building access. If you are retiring mid-year, I work around the school schedule. Call or text 702-496-4214 to get on the calendar.
Is there a minimum number of books?
No minimum. One box or a hundred boxes — I take everything. Most retiring teachers have accumulated far more than they realize, and what starts as "a couple of shelves" usually turns into eight or ten boxes once you start pulling books down. Volume is never a problem on my end.
Are donations to NMLP tax-deductible?
No. NMLP is a for-profit business, not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations to me are not tax-deductible. I am completely transparent about this. The value proposition is different: every book gets individually assessed, collectible items are identified and generate real income, readable copies go to community programs, and nothing goes to a landfill. The alternative for most teachers is the dumpster, which also has zero tax benefit.
What happens to children's books that are not valuable?
Children's books in readable condition — even well-loved copies with classroom wear — get distributed to Little Free Libraries, APS McKinney-Vento families, after-school programs, and partner organizations across Albuquerque. A picture book that has been read to five hundred kids still has plenty of reads left. Books too damaged to read go to paper recycling, not a dumpster.
Can you identify first editions of children's books?
Yes. First edition identification in children's literature is a core skill behind what I do. Publisher methods vary — Harper and Row used different number lines than Random House, and Scholastic Book Club editions look similar to trade editions but are not the same. I check every book individually. Teachers sometimes have genuinely collectible first printings in classroom bins alongside everyday reading copies, and the only way to know is to look at every one.
Do you take textbooks?
Yes. Most current textbooks have minimal resale value because edition cycles and digital adoption have compressed the market. But I take them because some do have value — particularly older editions that have become reference works, out-of-print titles, and textbooks with historical significance. A teacher retiring after thirty years often has textbooks from multiple eras, and occasionally something from the 1970s or 1980s turns out to be genuinely sought after.
What about damaged or heavily used classroom books?
Classroom books live hard lives — that is expected and fine. Cracked spines, margin notes, sticky residue from labels, name stickers, highlighting, dog-eared pages — all normal classroom wear. I take books in any condition. Readable copies go to community programs. Books too damaged to read go to paper recycling. Just mention any mold or water damage when you schedule the pickup.
How do I schedule a pickup during summer break?
Call or text 702-496-4214 anytime. Summer is actually my busiest season for teacher pickups — I do more school-related pickups in June and July than any other months. If you are picking up from the school, coordinate with your front office for building access. If the books are at home, I come to your house. Either way, I bring the vehicle and do all the carrying.
Do you work with school districts?
Yes. I work with individual schools and with district-level contacts. When a school library is weeding its collection or a building is closing, I handle the entire removal. APS is my most common district partner because of geography, but I work with any New Mexico school district. The process is the same: I come, I take everything, and every book gets individually assessed at the warehouse.
What about educational posters, games, and other classroom materials?
I primarily handle books, paper, and media. Educational posters, games, manipulatives, and teaching supplies are outside my core operation. That said, if they are mixed in with your books and you want everything gone in one trip, I will take them. I cannot promise those items will be individually assessed the way books are, but I will make sure they reach a teacher supply exchange or donation center rather than a dumpster.
More Resources for Book Donations
Children's Book Donations
Everything about donating children's books in Albuquerque — what I take, how it works, where the books go.
School Partnerships
How NMLP works with Albuquerque schools on book donations, library weeding, and classroom cleanouts.
Free Book Pickup
The full details on my free book pickup service — areas covered, scheduling, and what to expect.
Complete Donation Guide
Your guide to donating books in Albuquerque — every option, every scenario, every question answered.
Teacher Textbook Donations
For teachers with classroom textbook sets, curriculum materials, and adopted-program volumes.