FAQ
We are located in SE Ann Arbor at 2091 Stratton Ct. Ann Arbor, MI 48108. When you come, you will be in a residential neighborhood, you are in the right place. We are a family business that operates Give My Books out of our barn on the back of our property. We specifically built the barn so we could operate our book business and book pickup service out of it.
We take:
- New
- Old
- Children's books
- College textbooks
- Hard cover
- Soft Cover
- Pretty much if it's a book, we'll take it!
We do not take:
- Magazines
- Newspapers
- Encyclopedias
- Cassette tapes (unless an audiobook)
- VHS tapes (we have stopped taking VHS tapes as of October 15, 2020)
- Moldy or mildewed books
We take:
- DVDs
- CDs
- Video Games
- Audiobooks
- Software
- Vinyl Records
- Puzzles (please only give puzzles that you KNOW have all the pieces. Count them if you have to please. Nobody wants to do all that work only to find one piece missing)
- Board Games (again, please make SURE all the pieces are present)
We are a family business. Therefore we sell whatever books we can to support our family and the free Give My Books service. We also employ 6 other people either full or part time. We sell books wholesale to book stores and other book sellers throughout the country and one worldwide bookstore.
Since not all books can be resold to bookstores or other booksellers, we needed a way to give books back into the community so we have been running our low-cost community book sale, called JLC Book Sale, each year in the summers for a number of years now. Check out the Summer Book Sale Events page to learn more.
Now though, because of our expanded pickup area we will be getting many more books in and so we needed to have something in place to get them back into the hands of readers year-round. This is why we have launched our Give Back Books program. We have a goal of giving AT LEAST 50,000 books back to the community in 2022 and 100,000 books back in 2023.
You sure can! Come to 2091 Stratton Ct. Ann Arbor, MI 48108. Monday - Saturday from 9am to 6pm. No appointment needed. Use our No Contact Drop Off Shed out front. Feel free to pull in the drive to make unloading easier.
We are not a non-profit. We are a local family business that offers our free community pickup service to help you free up space in your home.
Because we are not a non-profit we can not give any tax deduction forms. If you need a tax form you may want to take your books to a registered 501(c)(3) organization. If a tax form isn’t needed, we can pick your books up for free.
No worries, we will still be coming. Please make sure the books are covered so they will stay dry or you can move them into a garage. Just let us know if you need to move them by texting 734-800-5259 or emailing pickuprequest@givemybooks.com
Any box must be under 50lbs. The books should be in a box or a bag that is light enough for one person to carry by themselves. (We’re strong but we need our backs) We would like to ask you to FILL whatever box or bag you are using to the full rather than using 2 or more boxes just half full. This saves us space in our vehicle and better protects the books in transit. Please double bag paper sacks if possible.
We ask everyone to have their books or other items out by 8AM. We will be by to pick them up between 8AM and 8PM. We cannot guarantee that we will be by at any specific time as there are many factors that determine when we will get to your address the day of your scheduled pickup. Thank you for your understanding.
As many as you would like, no limit. If you have TONS please let us know so we can plan, space-wise, in our vehicle.
Absolutely! Our goal is to help you free up space in your home. If you get 4 or 5 or 10 boxes ready on one day and would like them gone so that you can have space to get others ready, that’s just fine. Just fill out a pick up request form for each day and we will be there.
Schools or teachers can request books through our Give Back Books program using the Teacher Request Form. The GBB form is here. Please note: as we roll out the program throughout SE Michigan, there will be much interest. So due to the high number of requests we anticipate, we will do our best to fill all of them but there may be a delay from the time the request is made to the time we can fulfill it as we make it our goal to get 2 books for each student TO KEEP per request and 2 books per student for the TEACHER’S CLASSROOM. That's 4 books per student (many schools have 300 or so students).
Our pick up area has now expanded to include all of Washtenaw County and parts of Livingston, Oakland, Wayne, and Monroe Counties. If you are outside of our pickup area, please call/text us at 734-800-5259 or email us at pickuprequest@givemybooks.com to see if we can get your pickup approved. We also want to know that you are interested in us picking up in your area, so that helps us know where to expand next.
This one is HUGE... please tell others about our service. We need your help in telling others about our free service. The best ways are on social media like Nextdoor, Google and Facebook.
You can also come to our Summer Book Sale Events. Read about those here.
Also, you can support our service by getting free books from us. Read about that here.
Lastly, you can support our service by buying books from our year-round book store. Find that here.
Didn’t see your question answered here? Please text us your question at 734-800-5259 or email us at pickuprequest@givemybooks.com.