Summer Reading Program Book Donations in Albuquerque

Every August, the Same Problem

Last verified May 2026 · Original research by Josh Eldred

The Summer Surplus Landscape

I am Josh Eldred, and I run the New Mexico Literacy Project out of my warehouse at 5445 Edith Blvd NE in Albuquerque. I specialize in what I call the predictable surpluses — the moments in the calendar when books pile up in places that cannot keep them, and communities exist that need them. Summer, more than any other season, generates one of the most consistent and underserved of those surpluses.

From June through August, Albuquerque runs dozens of reading programs simultaneously. The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Library System operates its coordinated summer reading program across more than a dozen branch locations. Albuquerque Public Schools runs summer literacy programs at Title I schools and through its Extended Learning programs. PTAs and PTOs organize book fairs that leave behind unsold inventory when the tables fold up. Scholastic Book Fairs close out their spring and fall cycles with display copies and overstock. Boys and Girls Clubs across the metro run reading initiatives for the youth they serve. Church camps, community centers, and neighborhood organizations layer on additional programming. It is a season of reading, which means it is a season of books — and when those programs end, the books do not disappear.

What happens to those books depends almost entirely on who is holding them and what resources they have. Some programs are organized enough to have a plan. Most are not. A library branch coordinator who has just wrapped up twelve weeks of summer programming and is facing fall preparation on Monday morning does not have bandwidth to individually place hundreds of surplus books. A PTA treasurer staring at boxes of unsold book fair inventory does not know that there is a warehouse fifteen minutes away that will pick them up at no cost. A Boys and Girls Club site director whose summer enrichment program has ended does not have a truck or a storage plan for the remaining reading materials.

That is the gap NMLP fills. This page is written for the people who are sitting with that surplus right now — or who will be sitting with it in August — and who want a responsible, efficient path forward. Librarians, reading program coordinators, PTA and PTO organizers, camp directors, community center staff: the process is simple, the pickup is free, and the books will be used again.

The sections below cover each source of summer surplus in detail — how the programs work, what typically happens to materials at the end, and how NMLP fits into the picture. If you already know what you have and want to schedule a pickup, call or text 702-496-4214 and we can set it up in a few minutes.

Title I Schools and Extended Learning

APS Summer Literacy Programs

Albuquerque Public Schools operates a substantial summer learning infrastructure. The Extended Learning department coordinates summer programs at numerous elementary schools, with a particular concentration at Title I schools — schools where a significant percentage of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. Federal funding through Title I, Title III, and other streams supports summer literacy programming because the research on summer learning loss is unambiguous: children who do not read over the summer lose ground, and that loss disproportionately affects children from lower-income households who lack access to private tutoring, enriched summer camps, and home libraries.

APS summer literacy programs purchase books specifically for program use. Reading specialists, interventionists, and classroom teachers select leveled readers, decodable texts, phonics materials, and grade-level chapter books to use with students during the summer session. Some of these materials are durable enough to persist across multiple summers. Others — particularly consumable materials like leveled readers with writing prompts, phonics workbooks, and comprehension response journals — are single-use by design. At the end of the summer session, consumable materials that have been used by students need to go somewhere, and non-consumable books that have been retired from the program face the same question.

The summer literacy coordinator or reading specialist managing the program at a given school typically has a summer-end window — often the last week of the program or the week immediately after — to clear materials and prepare spaces for the fall. This window is tight. Fall professional development starts quickly, teachers return, and custodial staff needs classroom access for cleaning and setup. Books that are still stacked in a reading intervention room when the custodians arrive in mid-August become a problem that no one planned for.

I have worked with APS summer program coordinators at multiple Title I schools across the district. The schools I most commonly serve are clustered in the International District along Central and Zuni, the South Valley along Rio Bravo and Isleta, the North Valley and Barelas along Fourth Street, and in the near Northeast Heights where older Title I schools serve established working-class neighborhoods. But I can reach any APS school in the metro, and I am willing to coordinate multi-school pickups on the same route if an Extended Learning coordinator is managing surplus at more than one site.

APS teachers also generate personal reading library surplus through the summer. A reading specialist who has been building her classroom library for fifteen years may retire or transfer to a different grade level and have three hundred leveled readers that do not fit her new assignment. A summer school teacher may have inherited books from a predecessor, supplemented with her own purchases, and accumulated more than her room can hold. These teacher-to-NMLP donations are common in August and September, and they are among the most useful materials I receive because teachers tend to acquire high-quality, appropriate-level books for their specific student populations. Information about donating to Albuquerque schools and through NMLP covers this pathway in more detail.

On the receiving side, APS Title I schools are the primary destination for children's books and leveled readers that come through my warehouse. If your school's summer program is generating surplus, that surplus can end up stocking the library at a sister school across town that needs it. The redistribution network NMLP maintains connects schools that have too much with schools that have too little, and summer is when that network gets the most use.

Unsold Inventory After the Tables Fold

PTA/PTO Book Fairs and Unsold Inventory

Beyond Scholastic, many Albuquerque school PTAs and PTOs organize independent book fairs — events that source inventory from a mix of publishers, local distributors, and sometimes donated used books from community members. These fairs often support specific school fundraising goals, library acquisition targets, or literacy initiatives that the PTA has championed. They require enormous volunteer effort to set up, run, and tear down, and the fair coordinator who drove the whole project typically goes home at the end of the week exhausted and often surrounded by boxes of unsold books.

PTA book fair surplus has a distinctive character. Because many PTA fairs solicit donated used books alongside new inventory, the surplus can be highly mixed — a near-new picture book from this year's Scholastic catalog sitting next to a gently worn middle grade novel from a family's donation, next to a slightly dated nonfiction title that did not attract buyers. This mixed-condition, mixed-source surplus is exactly the kind of collection that most donation channels are not well-equipped to handle. Goodwill takes it with varying levels of enthusiasm depending on the day. The school library cannot absorb used donations without cataloguing them, which takes librarian time that may not exist. The books end up in a closet or a storage room, waiting for someone to figure out what to do.

I handle this category well precisely because I am set up for mixed-condition bulk processing. I do not require you to pre-sort by condition, age, or category. I accept used and new in the same box. I assess everything individually at the warehouse, route appropriate books to redistribution partners, and sell what has market value to fund the operation. The PTA coordinator who calls me at the end of the book fair gets her closet back without having to make twenty individual decisions about individual books.

For PTAs considering their book fair model, I am also a resource before the fair. If your PTA is planning a used book fair and wants to supplement with donated inventory, I can discuss whether I have materials that would fit your event. The relationship works in both directions: PTAs that donate their fair leftovers to me build a relationship that allows them to draw on NMLP's inventory for future events. I genuinely prefer these ongoing partnerships over one-time transactions.

The timing window for PTA fair surplus is tight. Fairs typically run for a week, and the PTA needs the space back promptly. If your fair is ending this week, call now: 702-496-4214. Tell me your timeline and I'll do my best to meet it for locations in the Albuquerque metro.

An Important Distinction

The Difference Between Library Discards and Program Surplus Books

When I talk with librarians and reading program coordinators for the first time, one of the first clarifying questions I ask is whether we are talking about library discards (what librarians call "weeded" books) or program surplus books. These are meaningfully different categories, and understanding the distinction helps clarify the logistics and the appropriate destination for each.

Library Weeded Books

Library discards are books that were formally part of the library's catalogued collection and have been deaccessioned through the library's weeding process. They carry all the marks of a working library copy: catalogue stamps, often on multiple interior pages; spine labels with call numbers; barcode stickers on the back cover or inside the front cover; security strips (either magnetic strips or RFID tags embedded in the binding); sometimes date-due slips or card pockets from the pre-digital era; and frequently a "WITHDRAWN" or "DISCARDED" stamp applied at the time of deaccessioning to indicate the book is no longer library property.

Public library weeding follows professional standards — the CREW method (Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding) is the most widely used framework in American public libraries. Books are weeded based on age, circulation history, physical condition, accuracy of content, and relevance to the community. The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Library System conducts ongoing weeding as a standard part of collection management, not just in response to space pressure. A branch librarian may weed a hundred books in a given month as part of routine collection maintenance, and several hundred more when space pressure from new acquisitions requires it.

ABCLS maintains a formal policy for deaccessioned materials. Most branches conduct periodic Friends of the Library book sales where weeded materials are sold to the public at nominal prices. Materials that do not sell at the Friends sale are typically donated to community organizations or disposed of through appropriate channels. NMLP is one of several community destinations that receives weeded library materials from ABCLS branches — primarily through branch coordinators who contact me directly, or through community members who receive books from Friends sales and then donate their excess to NMLP. For more on this pathway, the library book sale leftovers guide covers it comprehensively.

Program Surplus Books

Program surplus books are an entirely different category. These are materials that were purchased or acquired specifically for a time-limited program — a summer reading program, a grant-funded literacy initiative, a book fair, a camp reading program — and have no home once the program ends. They were never formally catalogued into a permanent collection. They do not carry library processing marks (unless they were pulled from a library collection for program use, which does sometimes happen). They exist in a kind of institutional limbo: the organization owns them, but the program they were bought for is finished, and the organization has no ongoing use for them.

Program surplus books tend to be in considerably better condition than library discards, for a simple reason: the program had a defined duration, and books used for a ten-week program have ten weeks of handling rather than ten years. They may be well-loved — a picture book that was read aloud twelve times over a summer shows it — but they are typically intact, complete, and free of the processing marks that characterize deaccessioned library books.

The distinction matters for redistribution. Program surplus books in good condition are often appropriate for direct placement in classroom libraries, residential Little Free Libraries, and community reading spaces without the sorting overhead that library discards require. When a coordinator tells me she has a hundred picture books from the summer reading program and they are all in good shape, I know those books can move quickly into the redistribution stream. When she tells me she has a hundred library discards from the weeding project, I know there is more sorting involved — some will be fine, some will need more careful evaluation, and some will need to go to the Friends sale queue or recycling.

NMLP accepts both categories. I am used to working with library staff on deaccessioned materials, and I understand the documentation and condition nuances involved. If you are uncertain which category your books fall into, describe what you have and I will help you figure it out over the phone.

Transparency in Redistribution

Where Program Surplus Books Go

I want to be completely transparent about what happens to books after they come through the NMLP warehouse. Librarians and program coordinators who are making decisions about institutional materials deserve to know where those materials end up. Here is the honest picture.

APS Title I Schools and McKinney-Vento Programs

The largest and most immediate destination for children's books from summer program surplus is APS Title I elementary schools. Teachers and reading specialists at these schools have persistent need for classroom library books, leveled reading materials, and read-aloud titles. I supply classroom libraries directly, delivering materials that teachers can put to use immediately rather than waiting for school purchasing cycles. APS McKinney-Vento programs — serving students experiencing homelessness — also receive books through NMLP, because children in transition often have no books at all and benefit most immediately from access to reading material they can keep. The connection between donating books to Albuquerque schools and NMLP is direct and active.

Little Free Libraries Across Albuquerque

Albuquerque has a growing network of Little Free Libraries — the small wooden boxes on posts in front of homes and businesses where neighbors take and leave books. I supply materials to LFL stewards across the metro on a regular rotation. Stewards in neighborhoods that are not well-served by the public library system — some parts of the International District, the South Valley, portions of the West Side — get the most consistent supply from me because their need is greatest and their proximity to public library branches is lowest. Summer reading program children's books are ideal LFL inventory: they are age-appropriate, often in good condition, and represent exactly the kind of material that families browsing a neighborhood book box are looking for.

La Vida Llena Senior Community

La Vida Llena is a continuing care retirement community in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights, and I supply their community library with materials on a regular basis. Senior reading communities have specific needs — large-print editions, recent popular fiction, biography and memoir, and the kind of narrative nonfiction that sustains long reading sessions. Summer program surplus skews young, but a significant portion of any program's inventory includes adult titles, and those go to senior communities and other adult reading programs. A retired librarian at La Vida Llena who has been waiting for a specific title to come through the community library will find it eventually because the community is on my regular distribution route.

Community Partners

My redistribution network includes shelters, transitional housing programs, community health clinics with waiting rooms, ESL programs serving immigrant communities, and youth organizations. Each partner has different needs, and I try to match materials to audiences as precisely as I can rather than distributing generically. A shelter serving families needs children's picture books. An ESL program serving adult learners needs English-language readers pitched at accessible vocabulary levels. A transitional housing program serving young adults needs genre fiction and practical life skills books. The organizational donation guide details the full breadth of community partners NMLP works with.

Resale to Fund Operations

I want to be transparent about this because it matters for organizations making institutional decisions. NMLP is a for-profit business. Some books that come through my warehouse — particularly recent titles, collectible editions, and out-of-print books with active buyer markets — are sold through my online sales channels. The revenue from those sales funds the warehouse lease, the van, fuel, and the time I spend on pickups, sorting, and redistribution. Without the resale revenue, the free pickup operation is not sustainable. A coordinator who donates summer program surplus to me is, in part, funding the infrastructure that allows me to donate to Title I classrooms and Little Free Libraries. The model is interconnected, and I am honest about that because I think the people I work with deserve to understand it.

For a more detailed look at how this works, the complete guide to where donated books go in Albuquerque walks through each destination and the decision process behind routing.

Beyond the Summer Season

The Year-Round Partnership Model

I want to address something directly: the title of this page, and the focus of most of it, is summer reading program surplus. But the most valuable relationships I have with schools, libraries, and community organizations are not seasonal — they are year-round partnerships built on ongoing communication, mutual trust, and a reliable exchange of materials in both directions.

Summer is when the surplus is most concentrated and most predictable. But reading programs do not begin in June and end in August. Schools run literacy programs all year. After-school reading initiatives operate October through May. Community centers serve kids every month. Libraries run programming fifty-two weeks a year. The book surplus that these programs generate is not seasonal — it is continuous, and a one-time summer pickup does not address the ongoing accumulation that happens in the background throughout the school year.

What a Partnership Looks Like

For organizations that want to establish an ongoing relationship with NMLP, the structure is flexible and calibrated to what works for you. Some arrangements are very simple: a school librarian knows she can call me any time she has a shelf of withdrawn books and I will come get them without drama or minimum requirements. Some are more structured: a community center refreshes its reading room quarterly and I am scheduled for a pickup at the end of each quarter. Some involve materials flowing in both directions: a PTA fair coordinator donates fair leftovers to me and also contacts me in the spring when she is planning the fair and wants to know if I have materials that would supplement the fair's inventory.

For organizations that both donate surplus and receive materials from NMLP, the relationship becomes particularly useful. A Title I school that sends me its summer program surplus in August may also receive a delivery from me in October when I have accumulated children's books that fit its student population. A community center that clears its reading room with me in June may call me in September when it is setting up a new enrichment program and needs two hundred books by the first of the month. I try to accommodate both directions of the relationship because that reciprocal exchange is what makes the local book ecosystem function sustainably.

Scheduling a Regular Cadence

For organizations with predictable accumulation patterns, setting up a regular pickup cadence eliminates the need to call every time and ensures that space does not become a problem between pickups. A school that runs monthly book drives to collect community donations can schedule a monthly pickup. A library branch that weeds on a quarterly cycle can schedule quarterly pickups to coincide with its weeding calendar. A community center that serves rotating program cohorts can schedule pickups at the end of each program cycle.

Regular pickups are easier for me to accommodate in my route planning, which means I can often be more flexible on timing and arrive more promptly than for one-off requests. If your organization has a predictable surplus pattern, tell me when we talk and we will figure out a cadence that works.

The Book Drive Partnership

Some organizations use their relationship with NMLP as the basis for community book drives. A school that tells parents "donate your children's books to the school — we'll make sure they reach NMLP and then go to kids in need" has a compelling and accurate fundraising-adjacent message. A library that promotes "books not in our collection go to NMLP's redistribution network" can encourage community members to bring in personal surplus without creating an intake burden for library staff. I am happy to be named as the destination in these community book drive communications, and I can provide factual information about the redistribution destinations to help organizations communicate honestly with their communities. The book drive organizer guide for New Mexico covers the planning process in detail.

Calling Early — The Best Thing You Can Do

If you are a reading program coordinator who is reading this in May or June, before your summer program has started — this is the ideal moment to call. We can establish the relationship before the surplus exists, discuss what your program will generate at the end, talk through the best pickup timing for your facility, and get you into my scheduling calendar with ample lead time. The program coordinators who call me in advance have the smoothest pickups; the ones who call me in mid-August when the custodians are about to start cleaning typically still get helped, but with more scrambling on everyone's part. 702-496-4214 is the number. Any time is a fine time to call.

Frequently Asked Questions