Used bookstore? Some of them even have a "trade" section, where you could theoretically just leave a huge pile of stuff and not take anything with you.

Release them into the wild:

http://www.bookcrossing.com/

You could donate them to a charitable organization like Goodwill or the Salvation Army (and use them as a tax deduction). Depending on what the books are, there are a lot of schools, especially in poorer districts, that would gladly take them for their libraries. If you need to get rid of anything else, bargain price them for a garage sale before the fall weather hits.

And if any of them are scifi or geeky, drop me a PM. I just got a new bookshelf I need to fill up.

I hoard them and do not plan to let them go. Ever !
It's like a bookstore with a 'WE NEVER OPEN' sign on the door.

I lend em a lot to people I know will enjoy em though.

The books I want to get rid of are the ones that aren't cherished. Not every book turned out to be as good as it looked by its cover. My wife also has a few hundred or more paperback romance novels that are double stacked on the shelves, and I'm sure that someone else will want to read them if I can get them into the right spot (i.e., out of my house).

Buy more shelves-- that's what I do.

But our local library accepts all book donations and if they're not books they want, they go in a "for sale" box and the library keeps the money. Maybe you can help set up something like that at your library?

I'd say find a favored deployed guy and ship em to his deployed location. He should be able to round up an address for an MWR hut or some such; pack em and send em over there. I'm sure someone will find a love for them, an escape back to this side of the world.

Also, the used bookstore idea is good too.

They're contraband, it's best just to burn them before the firemen do.

Give them to the Library, make your own Library, give them to a Nursing Home or Hospital or a local charity.

Same i cant' imagine getting rid of my books. While i would eventually change my mind i think about it from time to time for my videos and cd's but never my books.

It seems to be covered already, but I was going to suggest checking local charities.

For example, my local Save-a-Pet has an annual book sale. I save up the stock, and donate it to them right before the sale. They sell as much as they can (which is a lot), and I believe donate the rest.

If you have to ship them, inquire about "hundredweight". You'd be surprised how much can drop off of shipping when the weight crosses 100 lbs. Back in my warehouse days, I was known to throw ballast in a box to get the weight up, and the shipping costs down.

What to do with old books if you have too many? If you make four stacks of books of equal height, roughly 2' each, you can put a peice of wood over them with a cloth covering and you'll have a nice end table for your living room. I've also been told that you can stack them vertically against walls and then draw a decorative folding wall in front of them.

This is the kind of thing I talk about with people I meet at book fairs.

Sometimes these things can't really be avoided. I mean, if a girl really digs your book collection, what're ya gonna do?

The half life of printed information is six months. I'm a librarian and I think books a great, but the facts of the matter is that by and large, books have much less value as an archived medium than in the past. Publishers have realized that the first 100,000 books of any print run cost the most, after that it is just the cost of paper and ink to print more, so we have seen the era of "books as wallpaper" at the big box book stores where they will ship stacks and stacks of John Grisham / Norah Roberts / Michael Crichton (or today's big sellers) only intending to sell a fraction. Since the bookstores are only charged for what they actually sell, the overstock is just advertising. I.e., "Gosh they printed a lot of books, it must be good!"

Anyway, that is just my way of explaining that weeding the collection is ok. It is *FINE* to throw books away. If you think a book might be rare, just check open worldcat: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/23900618&referer=brief_results to see how many libraries own it. But if you are throwing them away, chances are the library already has "weeded" their extra copies as well.

I live in Portland, so every few years I take a trip to Powells and sell my discards. I like my home library, so I don't sell a lot, but I'm finding as the years go by that the value of used books has dropped steeply. Books just aren't rare anymore, at least recent editions aren't.

QFT. Someone someday may get alot of use out of them. Of course that is what I've been saying about the 486 DX2 that is sitting in my closet at the moment. It drives my wife insane but somehow in my twisted logic I justify it.