Library patrons: We love getting donations. Once in a while we even keep a few and the rest are put out on the booksale shelves. IF they're in decent condition. It's not rocket science, folks. Take a step back before you donate and ask yourself if you'd want to buy your books given the condition they're in. If they're torn,dirty,icky,really battered,ect, what makes you think anyone else will want them? Especially when you donate ones like today's, with bugs in the bag. Or a bug and a lot of what looked like bug ick or *something*. I do know that bookworms and other bugs like to munch books if they're stored improperly. But by the time you pull them out and they're in bad shape, we can't fix them.
I wonder if what my coworker said is true...people can't stand sometimes to toss books, so they either hope we can work miracles or that we'll toss them for them. I can see if it's some kind of old item with historical value, sometimes experts can stop the damage and make them suitable for study. But we probably won't get anything like that at our small library. (once, we did get a scrapbook with what looked like Civil War-era newspaper clippings about the Lincoln Assassination. Someone took them home, but IDK if they turned out to be real or fake.) In general, I seriously wish people would stop, think, and save us the trouble and disgust of finding icky books.
I do have to admit, however, that in our old building, we had problems with the reference books getting bugs in them, but they weren't so bad they had to be thrown out. Most of the time. And things are better in this building.
Also: When the sign says to keep your food in the cafe' area, DO IT. I hate finding your wrappers and pop bottles and crumbs in the stacks. Thank you for not leaving piles of sunflower seeds around anymore, but no one wants to have to remove the crap that might've touched your mouth. You parents, watch your kids and make sure they do it. They're the biggest offenders, because you either go on the computer and don't watch what they're doing or just drop them off and leave. If they're over 8, we can't forbid it, but we can tell you to come get them if they're acting like banshees.