I hate to hear about the loss of books! Each library book has a service lifetime of decades and can serve hundreds of people in that time.

Before I moved here to Arizona I had storage units both here and in San Diego.
I had about 1000-1500 books in one of them - most of them older 1900-1980s vintage. Unfortunately I was familiar about storing books off of cold cement floors to avoid humidity and moisture damage which makes the pages stick or turn black spotted, but I failed to take into account what happens when a storage unit hits 115-125 degrees for three weeks - like an oven set on low.

;-)

When I retrieved the volumes most were ok - but the oldest ones, had their spines loosened by the heat - the glue dried out completely and cracked. War time volumes on that cheaper paper commenced with their tell-tale rapid yellowing.

I spent a few hours with a long thin oil painting brush and good book binding glue, to recover as many spines as I could - but some will sadly never be the same.

I see it could have been far worse though - it could have been water damage!

I should have known better.

But it is a learning experience. Perhaps someone can learn from my lesson. Air-conditioned storage units are a prerequisite for Arizona book storage any time after May and before October.

What I can't figure out is why your library is not set up to receive donations of books? Do the librarians want to have more control over content? I can't imagine so, because one could filter it long before it hits the shelves anyway. What's that all about? Getting people to fork over money for a library is far tougher than getting folks to donate books.