Update: As of January 2025, we have given away 15,000 books. However, the Ruth Mini Mobile Library is closed indefinitely due to health issues and funding. Maybe we will come back in the future.
I never thought I’d ever pick up 500 books at once.
When I started this project, I never thought it would get so big so fast. The first time I bought books for my mobile library I bought 50 books for $5. Thirty-eight books went to my library, and the other 12 books went to my personal collection.
For a while, we didn’t get any donations. I had to spend my own money to purchase books from the bookstore, yard sales, and book sales around town. I asked my friends and family if they could donate some of their old books, and I received way more than I expected.
I had a sweet little girl named Anika that came to our booth one day and she was excited to get new books. She was so excited she went home and cleared out her bookshelf and donated 50 books to us.
Now, I have too many donations.
It’s hard to fathom what 500 books even looks like, and luckily I took a picture (see photo above). Since January 2017, I collected 1200 books and given away 500 books. You would think it would be easy as pie to give away free books, but I’ve run into some obstacles and naysayers.
About 85% of the books I received are for adults. They can sometimes be harder to give away because while there aren’t many adults who like to read. There are even fewer people that have time to read. I understand, I never had time to read for pleasure until after I graduated college. It has become increasingly hard to get adults to read in their free time. eBooks are also on the rise, making physical books less attractive because of all the space they take up.
To give you an idea of how big my library has gotten, I started on March 11, 2017, with only 150 books. The final count before we closed was 15,000 books. Regardless of the difficulties, we are appreciative of the large volume of donations we have received.
It’s not easy doing all this work, but I started this on my own, and I’ve never been one to expect help from anyone.
Be careful what you wish for though because I lost track of my donations amounts, and now I have close to 10,000 books. Do your best to not accept all 500 books at one time.
If you are interested, I wrote a children’s book call The Legend of Miss Ruth The Mobile Librarian.
Check out my mobile library here.