MOVING & NEED BOOKS GONE

Moving and Need Books Gone Fast in Albuquerque

You have a move date, a house full of books, and no time to deal with them. I get it. This page covers every option for getting your books handled — a scheduled pickup, a 24/7 drop box, and the full "just take everything" approach. PCS orders, job relocations, downsizing, storage unit cleanouts. Tell me your move date and I'll do my best to work with your timeline, not the other way around.

Read the Guide Call or Text 702-496-4214

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

What's on This Page

The Moving Timeline Crunch

Here is what happens. You accept the offer letter, sign the new lease, or get the closing date on the house sale. You start packing the kitchen, the closets, the bathroom cabinets. And somewhere around day three of wrapping plates and cramming shoes into garbage bags, you walk into the spare bedroom and see the bookshelves. Twelve shelves, floor to ceiling. Maybe another six in the living room. A few boxes of paperbacks in the garage that never got unpacked from the last move. And the truck comes in ten days.

The math on books during a move is punishing. A standard banker's box of hardcovers weighs between 40 and 60 pounds. A bookshelf that looks modest — five or six shelves, maybe three feet wide — holds somewhere between 80 and 150 books depending on size. When you start converting shelves into boxes, you realize quickly that you are looking at 15 or 20 boxes of weight that your movers will charge you for, that your truck rental doesn't have room for, or that your back cannot survive loading on a dolly. Books are, pound for pound, one of the heaviest common household items. Only tools and canned goods compete.

Most people in this situation start searching for options and immediately hit a wall. Goodwill takes books, but their intake can be slow, the lines at the donation drive-through can be long, and the staff often cannot handle large quantities in one trip. Half Price Books will buy some, but they are selective about condition and genre, and a trip to their closest location means loading and unloading in a parking lot with no guarantee they'll take everything. Listing on Facebook Marketplace takes time you don't have — fielding messages, scheduling pickups that fall through, dealing with no-shows. You need something faster and simpler.

That is what this page is about. I'm Josh Eldred, and I run the New Mexico Literacy Project out of a warehouse on Edith Boulevard in Albuquerque's North Valley. I pick up books — large quantities of books — and I do my best to work on a timeline that matches yours. Tell me your move date, and if it's genuinely imminent let me know — I'll fit you into the route as soon as my schedule allows. No sorting required on your end. No minimum quantity for scheduled pickups within the metro. And a 24/7 drop box at the warehouse for those midnight-before-the-move emergencies when you just need the books gone now.

I built this service specifically because I kept hearing the same story from people across Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Corrales, and the East Mountains: "I have too many books, I'm moving soon, and nobody will come get them." The reality is that books have an unusual combination of qualities that make them hard to deal with during a move. They are heavy, they are bulky, they are fragile if they are old or valuable, and most people have a sentimental attachment that makes it hard to just throw them in a dumpster. That attachment is justified. Books carry history, knowledge, and memory. They deserve better than a landfill. And you deserve better than spending your last days before a move hauling boxes to six different donation centers hoping someone will take them.

The rest of this page covers every specific moving scenario I encounter regularly in the Albuquerque metro. Military PCS moves from Kirtland AFB. Corporate job relocations for the tech and defense sector. Downsizing from a house to an apartment. Storage unit cleanouts for books that have been sitting in a climate-controlled unit for years while you figured out what to do with them. Each scenario has its own pressures and timelines, and I address each one directly so you can find your situation and know exactly what to expect.

PCS Military Moves — Kirtland AFB and Sandia Labs

Kirtland Air Force Base is one of the largest employers in the Albuquerque metro. Combined with Sandia National Laboratories — which sits adjacent to Kirtland and employs thousands of civilian engineers, scientists, and support staff — the base complex drives a constant cycle of families arriving and departing Albuquerque on military orders. A permanent change of station happens every two to three years for most active-duty families, and for many Sandia contractors and DOE-affiliated civilians, relocations happen on similar timelines.

If you are reading this because PCS orders just dropped, you already know the timeline pressure. Orders come in and you have weeks to pack out a household, clear housing or break a lease, handle the vehicle logistics, get the kids enrolled at the next duty station, and manage all the administrative paperwork that the military generates during a move. Books are rarely the first priority during that whirlwind. But they become a problem fast when you realize that military moves come with weight limits.

The Joint Travel Regulations set weight allowances based on rank and dependency status. For an E-5 with dependents, you are looking at around 9,000 pounds. For an O-3, roughly 13,000 to 14,000 pounds. Those numbers sound generous until you start totaling furniture, appliances, clothing, kitchenware, and everything else that goes into a household. Books eat into that weight allowance fast. A personal library of 500 books — which is not uncommon for a reading family that has been stationed in Albuquerque for three years — can weigh 800 to 1,200 pounds depending on the mix of hardcovers and paperbacks. That is weight you cannot use for other things. And if your household goods exceed the allowance, you pay the overage out of pocket.

I work with military families from the neighborhoods surrounding Kirtland regularly — the Four Hills area, the Southeast Heights, Mesa del Sol, and the base housing areas. The pattern is always the same: orders arrive, the TMO briefing happens, the pack-out date gets set, and somewhere in the final week someone realizes the books need to go. I can work within that compressed timeline. A text to 702-496-4214 with your pack-out date and an estimate of how many books you have is all I need to get scheduling started. If the books are on shelves, I take them off the shelves. If they are in boxes already staged in the garage, even better. I bring the truck, load it, and have the books out of your house before your TMO inspection.

For Sandia Labs employees on a civilian relocation, the situation is similar in urgency but different in specifics. Corporate relocations for cleared personnel often come with relocation packages that are managed by third-party relo companies. Those packages sometimes include weight-based reimbursement, which means every pound of books you ship is a pound you could have used for something else — or a pound that comes out of your own pocket if the package caps out. The calculus is straightforward: keeping the books costs weight and money. Donating or handing off the books before the move costs nothing and frees up your allowance for the things you actually need at the next duty station or posting.

One more thing specific to military and cleared-personnel moves: I understand the operational security considerations that come with living near a national security installation. I don't need to come inside the house if you prefer not to have a stranger in your home. Books can be boxed and staged in the garage, on the porch, or at the curb, and I will load them without entering the residence. Whatever is comfortable for your family and your security posture works for me.

Job Relocations

Albuquerque's economy has diversified significantly over the past decade, and the result is a constant churn of professionals moving in and out of the metro for work. Intel's semiconductor fabrication campus in Rio Rancho employs thousands and goes through expansion and contraction cycles that move families in and out of Albuquerque and the surrounding communities. Meta's data center operations near Los Lunas bring in technical staff from across the country. The national labs — Sandia and Los Alamos — cycle contract engineers and researchers on multi-year rotations. Netflix's production facility in Albuquerque brings film and production crews for projects that last months or years before they wrap and move to the next location.

Corporate relocations in the tech and defense sectors tend to move fast. You accept the offer, get a start date four to six weeks out, and suddenly you are packing a household while wrapping up your current role. The relocation company assigned by your employer handles the logistics of the move itself — packing, transport, insurance — but they charge by weight and volume. Every box of books is a box that costs real money to ship. And if you are relocating from Albuquerque to a coastal city where your new housing is smaller and more expensive, the math tilts even further toward letting the books go before the move rather than paying to haul them across the country.

I have picked up from tech professionals in the Nob Hill condos and UNM-area apartments who accumulated books during a two-year stint at Sandia. From engineers in Rio Rancho who collected Southwest history and science fiction during their Intel years. From production coordinators in the South Valley who built a library of film and screenwriting reference books during a Netflix project. The common thread is always the same: the timeline is tight, the moving budget is finite, and the books need to go somewhere responsible without consuming days of packing time.

If you are in a corporate relocation and your employer is paying for the move, there is an additional consideration. Many relocation packages have a maximum weight or maximum cost. Books that you donate before the move are weight that stays within your cap. And depending on your situation, a donation receipt from a qualified organization may have value on your tax return — consult your CPA on the specifics of your situation, but it is worth asking. I provide donation receipts for all pickups upon request.

The process for a job-relocation pickup is simple. Text or call 702-496-4214 with your move date and a rough count of how many books you have. Even a rough estimate — "maybe 10 boxes" or "three full bookshelves" — is enough to schedule. I will confirm a pickup date that works within your timeline, come to your location anywhere in the Albuquerque metro, and haul the books away. You do not need to box them. You do not need to sort them. You do not need to be there for the entire pickup if you have other things to handle — hand me the garage code or leave the books accessible and I will load and text you when I am done.

Downsizing: House to Apartment

Downsizing is one of the most common reasons people contact me about books. The scenario plays out in a few different ways, but the core problem is always the same: the book collection was built for a bigger space, and the new space does not have room for it.

Empty nesters are the largest group. The kids have been out of the house for years. The four-bedroom home in the Northeast Heights or Corrales that made perfect sense when the family was together now has two empty bedrooms, a dining room that never gets used, and maintenance costs that keep climbing. Moving to a two-bedroom apartment near Uptown or a patio home in Rio Rancho makes financial sense. But the 2,000 square feet of bookshelves built over 30 years of reading do not fit into 900 square feet. The math is blunt: something has to go, and usually it is books before furniture because furniture serves an immediate practical function in the new space while books can sit in boxes indefinitely — which is exactly how people end up paying for a storage unit they visit twice a year.

Seniors moving to assisted living or retirement communities face a sharper version of this same problem. The move from a full-size home to a single room or a small suite at a place like La Vida Llena, Atria Vista del Rio, or one of the independent living communities along the Rio Grande corridor means cutting a household to its essentials. Books are heavy, they take up wall and floor space, and the new residence typically does not have the shelving infrastructure to hold more than a few dozen favorites. The family is often managing this transition while the parent or grandparent is dealing with the emotional weight of leaving a home they have lived in for decades. Adding a complicated book-disposal process on top of that is the last thing anyone needs.

Divorce situations are another common trigger for a rapid downsizing of a book collection. One household becomes two, and neither new space has room for the combined library. The timeline is usually dictated by a lease start date or a court-ordered move-out deadline, which means there is rarely time to sort carefully, research values, or find individual buyers for specific titles. The books need to leave, and they need to leave by a specific date.

For all of these situations — empty nesters, seniors, families restructuring — I offer the same straightforward service. I come to the home, load the books, and take them to the warehouse for individual assessment. You keep the books you want in the new space. I take the rest. If you need help deciding what might be worth keeping because of collectible value, I can do a quick walkthrough of the shelves and point out anything that stands out — first editions, signed copies, regional titles with serious collector interest. That walkthrough takes 15 or 20 minutes and costs nothing. It is just part of how I operate because I do not want anyone to hand off a book worth real money without at least knowing about it.

And if books are not the only thing you need gone before the move, I handle clothing and gear now too. The closets full of clothes you have not worn in years, the hiking and camping equipment from your old life in the Sandias, the household items that will not fit in the new place — it all goes in the same trip. One pickup covers books, clothing, outdoor gear, and household items. No need to schedule separate runs to separate donation centers. My moving donation pickup page covers the full scope, or you can go straight to the free pickup service page to schedule.

If you are in the early planning stages of a downsize and wondering what your collection might be worth before you decide what to keep and what to let go, the What's My Library Worth page walks through the factors that determine book value. But if you are already packing and the move date is set, skip the research and just call or text. I'll be there before the movers arrive.

The 24/7 Drop Box for Immediate Relief

Sometimes you cannot wait for a scheduled pickup. The movers come tomorrow. You just loaded the last box into the car and it is 11 p.m. on a Sunday night. You are leaving for your new city in the morning and the books are in the trunk. For those situations, the 24/7 drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE exists specifically for you.

The drop box is located in the parking area outside the NMLP warehouse in Albuquerque's North Valley. It is accessible from the street, lit at night, and open every single day of the year — weekends, holidays, two in the morning, whenever. Drive up, unload your books into the bin, and leave. No appointment. No paperwork. No interaction required. The entire process takes as long as it takes you to unload your car, which for most people is five to ten minutes.

The drop box handles books, records, CDs, DVDs, magazines, and other media. It does not have a weight or quantity limit on individual drop-offs, but it is sized for personal vehicle loads — if you have a truck bed full of boxes, it might take two trips or you may want to schedule a formal pickup instead. For car trunk and back seat loads, the drop box is designed to handle exactly that volume.

The 5445 Edith Blvd NE address is easy to find. Edith Boulevard runs north-south through the North Valley, parallel to Second Street and Fourth Street. If you are coming from I-25, exit at Osuna and head west to Edith, then turn south. If you are coming from the Westside or Rio Rancho, cross the river on Montano and head east to Edith, then north. The warehouse is in a commercial area with clear visibility from the road.

If you need a donation receipt for your drop-off, text me at 702-496-4214 after you leave the books with a brief description of what you dropped — "about 4 boxes of hardcover fiction and a bag of paperbacks" is plenty of detail. I will send you a receipt by text or email, whichever you prefer. The receipt is for your records and can be used for tax purposes — consult your CPA on the specifics.

The drop box is the single fastest way to get books out of your life in Albuquerque. No scheduling, no waiting, no coordinating calendars. Just drive, drop, and go. For people in the final 48 hours of a move, it is the most practical option available anywhere in the metro.

Bulk Pickup Scheduling

If you have more than a few boxes — an entire bookshelf, a room full of books, or a garage stacked with bankers' boxes — a scheduled pickup is the easiest path. Here is how it works from first contact to the books being gone.

Step one: text or call 702-496-4214. Tell me roughly how many books you have and your move date. You do not need an exact count. Descriptions like "probably 300 books across three bookshelves," "a dozen boxes in the garage," or "honestly I have no idea, maybe a thousand" are all fine. I have been doing this long enough that a rough description gives me what I need to plan truck space and time.

Step two: I propose a pickup date and a rough time window — as soon as my schedule allows. During busy moving seasons — late May through August, and December through January — I may be running two or three pickups per day, but I prioritize move-related pickups because I understand the deadline pressure. If your situation is genuinely urgent, tell me, and I'll do my best to rearrange my schedule when someone is leaving town.

Step three: the pickup itself. I arrive with a truck, boxes, and packing supplies if needed. If the books are on shelves, I take them off the shelves and box them myself. If they are already boxed, I load them directly. If they are in a pile on the floor of the guest room because you ran out of energy at 10 p.m. last night and just started pulling them off shelves, that is fine too. I have seen every possible configuration of books during a move, and none of them slow me down.

The entire pickup typically takes 30 minutes to an hour for a standard home library of 200 to 1,000 books. Larger collections — 2,000 books or more, or collections that include heavy art books, encyclopedias, and bound periodicals — may take longer. I will give you a time estimate when I schedule so you know what to expect.

You do not need to be present for the entire pickup. If you have other errands to run or packing to do in another part of the house, just show me where the books are and I will handle the rest. Many people let me in, point at the shelves, and then go back to taping boxes in the kitchen. When I am done, I will find you or text you to confirm the books are loaded and I am heading out.

For the full details on the free book pickup service — including what I accept, the areas I cover, and how to prepare — that page has everything. But for move-related pickups, the short version is: call or text, tell me when you need me there, and I will make it work.

What to Prioritize When Time Is Short

If you have 15 minutes to walk through your shelves before the books get loaded, here is what to pull aside. This is not a full guide to book valuation — that would take a full article on its own, and I have one at the first edition identification guide. This is the field version: the quick scan you can do while the packing tape and boxes are still out.

First editions with dust jackets. If a hardcover book has a dust jacket and the number line on the copyright page includes a "1" (often displayed as "10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" or "First Edition" stated explicitly), set it aside. Not every first edition is valuable, but the ones that are can be worth meaningful money, and you do not want them mixed into a box of book club editions heading to the warehouse without being flagged.

Signed copies. Open the cover and check the title page. If there is a handwritten signature — not a printed autograph plate, but an actual pen-and-ink inscription or signature — set that book aside. Signed copies of books by recognizable authors, especially New Mexico authors like Tony Hillerman, Rudolfo Anaya, Cormac McCarthy, or N. Scott Momaday, carry significant premiums in the collector market.

Anything published before 1950. Age alone does not guarantee value, but books from the first half of the twentieth century are more likely to have collectible interest than modern paperbacks. Leather bindings, gilt-edged pages, marbled endpapers, hand-tipped plates — if the book looks and feels old, set it aside for a closer look.

Southwest regional titles. Books about New Mexico, Arizona, West Texas, and the broader Southwest region have a dedicated collector base. This includes history, Native American art and culture, Spanish colonial period, geology, botany, ranching, mining, and the atomic era. Publishers like the University of New Mexico Press, Sunstone Press, Museum of New Mexico Press, and Rydal Press have produced titles that are actively sought by collectors. If the subject matter is specific to this region, it is worth a second look.

Maps, photographs, and ephemera tucked inside books. I find tucked-in items during almost every pickup: letters, postcards, photographs, newspaper clippings, maps, receipts, and bookmarks. Sometimes these have historical or sentimental value that exceeds the book itself. If you are moving fast, at least flip through the books that belonged to a parent or grandparent before they go into the box.

Everything else — the contemporary fiction, the mass-market paperbacks, the textbooks from college, the coffee table books, the self-help section — can come unsorted. I will assess every single book individually at the warehouse. Nothing valuable gets missed. The quick scan above is just insurance for the items with the highest collector value, the ones where a five-second check can flag something worth pulling out of the general flow. If you do not have time for even that, skip it entirely and let me handle everything at the warehouse. The system is designed for exactly that scenario.

The "Just Take Everything" Option

This is the option that most people moving on a tight deadline actually want, and I want to be direct about it: you can hand me your entire library without sorting a single book, and I will take all of it. Every shelf. Every box. Every pile. The beaten-up paperbacks, the pristine coffee table books, the encyclopedias from 1987, the romance novels, the obscure academic monographs, the children's books your kids outgrew a decade ago. All of it.

There is no cherry-picking. I do not walk through your shelves and select only the valuable titles while leaving you with the remainder to deal with. That approach — which some dealers use — is the worst possible outcome for someone who is moving. You end up with fewer books but the same logistical problem, because the 90 percent that the dealer did not want still needs to go somewhere. With the New Mexico Literacy Project, the entire collection leaves in one trip. Your shelves are empty. Your garage is clear. The problem is solved.

When the books arrive at the warehouse, every single one is individually assessed. I go through them one at a time. Collectible books — first editions, signed copies, antiquarian titles, Southwest regional books with active collector demand — are identified, researched using actual sold-price data, and listed on platforms where collectors will find them. Good reading copies in solid condition go to literacy programs, community libraries, school libraries, Little Free Libraries, and family giveaways. Damaged books are recycled through responsible paper recycling channels. Nothing usable gets wasted. Nothing goes to the landfill.

The "just take everything" approach works for any size collection. I have picked up 50 books from a studio apartment near UNM and 5,000 books from a four-bedroom house in the Northeast Heights. The process is the same regardless of scale: I show up with a truck, load the books, and handle everything from there. The only variable is how much truck space I need and how long the loading takes. For a studio apartment, that might be 20 minutes. For a large home library, it might be a couple of hours. Either way, you are done with the books when I pull away from the curb.

People sometimes hesitate to use this option because they feel guilty about not sorting first, or they worry that valuable books will get lost in the shuffle. I understand both concerns, and I want to address them directly. On the sorting: you are moving. You have a thousand things to do and a finite number of days. Using your limited time to sort books is almost never the highest-value use of that time. Let me handle it — that is literally what I do, every day, at the warehouse. On the valuable books getting missed: they won't. Every book gets handled individually. The assessment process I use is the same whether you hand me a curated selection or an unsorted mountain. The outcome is identical.

If this is the option you want, the phone call is short. Text or call 702-496-4214 and say something like: "I'm moving in a week and I need you to take all my books." That is all I need to hear. I will schedule the pickup, I will come get everything, and you can cross books off your moving checklist permanently.

Storage Unit Cleanouts

Albuquerque has a remarkable density of storage facilities. Public Storage, Extra Space Storage, Life Storage, CubeSmart, and dozens of independent operators line the commercial corridors along Menaul, Montgomery, Coors, and I-25. And inside a surprising number of those units, sitting on concrete floors and metal shelving, are boxes of books that somebody put there with the intention of dealing with them later.

"Later" has a way of turning into years. A family member passes away and the executor puts the book collection in storage while the estate settles. Someone moves from a house to an apartment and cannot bring themselves to get rid of the books, so they rent a 5x10 and stack the boxes inside. A divorce splits a household and the books end up in neutral territory — a storage unit — until someone decides what to do with them. Three years later, the monthly bill has added up to more than the books are worth, and the decision finally gets forced because the unit needs to be emptied.

I pick up from storage units regularly. The process is the same as a home pickup, with one logistical addition: you need to provide access. That usually means meeting me at the unit to open the door, or giving me a gate code and unit key ahead of time. Some facilities allow you to add a temporary access authorization for a third party — ask your facility's office. Once I have access, I load the books directly from the unit to the truck. If the unit contains other items besides books — furniture, household goods, clothing — I focus on the books and media unless I have arranged a broader cleanout.

Storage unit books sometimes have condition issues that home-stored books do not. Even climate-controlled units can develop humidity problems, and non-climate-controlled units in Albuquerque experience temperature swings from freezing winter nights to 100-degree summer days. Mildew, foxing, dust accumulation, and pest damage (silverfish and mice are the main culprits) are all things I encounter in storage unit pickups. None of these conditions are a dealbreaker. I take the books regardless of condition. Damaged books get recycled. Books that survived storage in good shape get assessed and routed just like any other pickup.

If you are paying monthly for a storage unit that contains books you haven't touched in over a year, consider this: the monthly rent on a 5x10 unit in Albuquerque runs roughly reading-copy prices to mid-range prices depending on location and features. Over a year, that is three-figure collector prices to four-figure prices spent storing books that are not being read, not being enjoyed, and not serving anyone. A single phone call can end that recurring expense and put those books back into circulation where they belong — in the hands of readers, collectors, students, and families.

For storage unit cleanouts that are part of a larger move — you're leaving Albuquerque and clearing the unit on your way out of town — I'll do my best to coordinate the storage unit pickup together with your home pickup so both get handled around the same time. One trip for the house, one trip for the storage unit, and both locations are cleared. Text or call 702-496-4214 to coordinate the logistics.

What Happens After Pickup

Once the books leave your house or storage unit, they go to the NMLP warehouse at 5445 Edith Blvd NE. From there, every book is individually handled. I want to be specific about what "individually handled" means, because it matters to people who care about where their books end up.

The first pass is triage. Every book is picked up, examined for condition, and sorted into categories. Collectible books — first editions, signed copies, limited editions, books with significant market value, and Southwest regional titles with active collector demand — go into the research and listing queue. These books are researched using actual sold-price data from the antiquarian and used book markets, then photographed and listed on platforms where collectors and institutions shop. This process can take weeks for a large collection, but every book with collectible potential gets the individual attention it deserves.

Good reading copies — books in solid condition that are not collectible but are perfectly good for someone to read and enjoy — go into distribution channels. These include literacy programs across New Mexico, community libraries, school classroom libraries, Little Free Libraries throughout the Albuquerque metro, and direct distribution to families and individuals. A fiction paperback from your shelf might end up on a Little Free Library post in the South Valley. A children's book might go to a classroom in the Heights. A textbook in current edition might go to a student at UNM or CNM who cannot afford the bookstore price.

Books that are too damaged, too outdated, or too deteriorated to serve any reader are recycled through responsible paper recycling channels. This is a small percentage of most collections — the vast majority of books that come through the warehouse find a second life in some form. But I want to be honest about the fact that some books genuinely cannot be rehomed. A water-damaged paperback with mold on the pages is a health hazard, not a donation. A 1994 edition of a software manual for Windows 3.1 is not useful to anyone. Those get recycled. Nothing goes to the landfill.

The net result is that your books continue to serve people after they leave your shelves. The collectible books find collectors who value them. The reading copies find readers who need them. The damaged books become recycled paper rather than landfill waste. It is the responsible lifecycle for a book collection, and it happens whether you hand me 50 books or 5,000.

If you donated a collection that you suspect contains books of real value and you want to know what was found, text me after the assessment is complete and I am happy to share what turned up. Occasionally I find things that genuinely surprise the donor — a book they thought was an ordinary reading copy turns out to be a scarce first printing worth serious money. When that happens, I reach out to let you know. Transparency about what is in the collection matters, and I run the operation accordingly.

Moving Soon? Let's Get the Books Handled.

Text or call with your move date and a rough estimate of how many books you have. Tell me your timeline and I'll do my best to fit you in. No sorting required.

Call 702-496-4214 Text 702-496-4214

Moving More Than Books? We Pick Up Clothing and Gear Too

Moving is the perfect time to let go of more than just books. The clothes you haven't worn in years, the camping gear from trips you used to take, the outdoor equipment gathering dust in the garage — it all needs a destination, and "the dumpster" isn't a good one.

We now pick up clothing, outdoor gear, and household items alongside your books — one visit handles everything. Vintage clothing and quality gear get sorted for resale, everyday items go to community reuse, and worn-out textiles go to material recycling. Call 702-496-4214 with your move date and we'll get it all handled.

Frequently Asked Questions

How fast can you pick up books in Albuquerque?

It depends on what my schedule looks like, since I'm a one-person operation, but I do my best to get to most Albuquerque metro addresses as soon as I can. For urgent situations — movers arriving soon, PCS orders with a tight report date — tell me and I'll work to fit you in as quickly as my route allows. Text or call 702-496-4214 with your timeline and I will do my best to work around it.

Is there a minimum number of books for pickup?

No strict minimum for scheduled pickups within the Albuquerque metro. If you have just a small bag of paperbacks, the 24/7 drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE is more convenient. For a box or more, I will come to you.

Do I need to sort or box the books before pickup?

No. Books can be on shelves, in piles on the floor, stacked in the garage, or still in moving boxes. I handle all the packing and loading. If they are already boxed, that speeds things up, but it is not required.

Can you pick up from a storage unit?

Yes. I pick up from storage facilities across the Albuquerque metro — Public Storage, Extra Space, Life Storage, CubeSmart, and independent operators. You just need to provide access by meeting me at the unit or leaving a gate code and key.

What if I'm leaving Albuquerque in less than a week?

Contact me immediately at 702-496-4214. I prioritize move-related pickups and I'll do my best to get to you as soon as my schedule allows. If a scheduled pickup cannot happen before your move date, the 24/7 drop box at 5445 Edith Blvd NE is always available — load your car, drive over, and drop them off any time of day or night.

Do you take books in any condition?

Yes. Water damage, yellowed pages, broken spines, missing dust jackets — bring it all. Every book is individually assessed at the warehouse. Good copies are resold or distributed. Damaged copies are recycled responsibly. Nothing goes to the landfill.

Can you take other items besides books — media, records, magazines?

Yes. I accept vinyl records, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, VHS tapes, audiobooks on cassette, magazines, comic books, maps, and paper ephemera alongside books. You do not need to separate media from books — it all comes in one trip.

How does the 24/7 drop box work?

The drop box is at 5445 Edith Blvd NE in the North Valley. Drive up, place books in the bin, and leave. Open 24/7, every day of the year. No appointment or paperwork. If you need a donation receipt, text 702-496-4214 after your drop-off with a description of what you left.

Do you serve the whole Albuquerque metro?

Yes. Albuquerque proper plus Rio Rancho, Corrales, North Valley, South Valley, Northeast Heights, Nob Hill, UNM area, Downtown, Westside, East Mountains, Tijeras, Edgewood, Bernalillo, Placitas, Los Lunas, and Los Ranchos de Albuquerque. Larger collections further out — Santa Fe, Belen, Socorro — can usually be arranged.

What happens to my books after pickup?

Every book is individually assessed at the warehouse. Collectible books are identified, researched, and listed for collectors. Good reading copies go to literacy programs, schools, community libraries, and families. Damaged books are recycled. Nothing usable is wasted, and nothing goes to the landfill.