• Balaquina@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 year ago

    Independent book sellers. Sounds weird, why would they give books away for free? I have a friend who sells books online and buys huge lots of books to resell, many of which are not resellable due to condition or oversaturation in the market. I have gotten a truly obscene amount of free books from her because of this. Lots of sellers have books they want to unload and often have to resort to throwing them away.

  • Corelli_III@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    1 year ago

    be advised that these programs are often co-opted by local officials to boost numbers and reduce actual available services to incarcerated populations, or to deflect blame for employee drug smuggling

    your experience will vary depending on the county

    its wise to partner with an existing, experienced program first to learn the field a bit and avoid the pitfalls counties lay for beginners

    for example, many counties will use bureaucratic expense approval hurdles or materials clearance and transportation hurdles to slow down and exhaust your efforts, but there are people with the specific experience and networks to navigate that stuff already in some cases

  • radix@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    A local or regional library often (but not always) serves jails in their community already. If not, they may be open to extending operations there. If that fails, libraries often rotate out stock to make room for newer, or more popular books. Anything they dispose of would be older, but for this situation, that may not be as much of an issue.

  • BarHocker@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Give more info about location and language, then maybe people can help better.

    Also maybe asking in the local community for book donations might be an option.

  • Aeao@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I want to add that I’ve heard you can get cheaper postal rates if it’s a book.

  • deafboy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    When I hear people talking about books, they often speak of them as if it was a comodity. Do some people just read a random book every once in a while?

    What am I missing?

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      They’re relatively expensive in my country. That’s why I only get them in PDF but a lot of people prefer the physical ones.