How to successfully donate comic books to a library?

My Boyfriend wants to donate a sizable comic book collection (about two long boxes), mostly single issues a.k.a. floppies. Some have adult situations (violence, cursing, sexual situations, etc) but most are appropriate for teens or children. He doesn't want the library to sell them and them end up in the hands of single person (a.k.a. a collector). He wants lots of people (teens and kids too) to be able to enjoy them. How can he make a donation and ensure the above? Our local library has some floppies but we are not sure how long they keep them and they also have a sizable graphic novel section.

Thanks for any thoughts/suggestions!

I would try to find a teen librarian with an interest in comics and talk to them directly about donating them to the teen department. It's hard to ensure that a library will do what you want with your donation, and yours sounds like it will take a lot of processing and will wear and tear easily, but that would be my best advice.

I can't imagine that comic books would last very long in a library.

I doubt there are many libraries around that keep vast copies of floppies around for long. Anything that comes like that (such as magazines) that we want to keep, we usually pay to have bound.

#2 is right - talk to the library and ask their opinion. But I would be prepared to hear that they have a very limited shelf life in that form, or that the library can't take them because they're difficult to shelve/catalog/etc properly. Still, it never hurts to ask! If they don't take them, they may be aware of another library that would.

If he does't have any luck with public libraries, he might want to look into donating them to the library in a youth centre or children's hospital or women's shelter.

Our library wouldn't be able to add them to the collection because they'd last about two weeks... i.e., one patron. sqdancer's suggestion is excellent, though.

5>> I thought that suggestion might be a little off-topic, which was why I didn't post it. I'm glad you did, sqdancer, because I really think that's the most practical suggestion.

Personally, I'm an adult who does do a fair bit of YA reading, and I've been giving books I've finished but don't want to keep to a young woman in my church who's just started teaching at an inner-city school, where the kids have very few books. I've been thinking, though, that I might start giving books to the local emergency shelter for LGBT teens.

But one thing I think your boyfriend has to do, leperdbunny, is "let go." We all think our possessions are the most treasured objects on earth and assume everyone else will think likewise and treat them accordingly. Once your boyfriend gives his collection away, it isn't his any more and he has to realize that, at a youth center or emergency shelter, the stuff's going to get beat up and won't have a very long life-span. That's simply a reality with anything as ephemeral as unbound comic books, so he can't expect them to last forever as treasured heirlooms.

I would contact the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction VT, http://www.cartoonstudies.org/wrj.html, and see if they can use these graphic stories/novels. They are the nation's only 2-year cartooning program.

There's an increasing interest in these resources by savvy librarians for this art form.

Good luck and thanks for the generosity.

He might consider getting them bound himself before donating. That would make them much more user-friendly and more likely to survive. It's not scary expensive to have it done.