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FOPAL’S Popular Monthly Sales

Depend On Your Generous Donations!

What Happens to the Books You Donate

Make a Cash Donation

Honor Someone Special

FOPAL’s Wish List 

Maps & Directions

Please Bring Us Your Books, CDs, DVDs, Games, Puzzles, Software, and Artwork

At our monthly book sales, Friends of the Palo Alto Library finds new readers/users for your donated items and contributes net proceeds to purchase new materials, technology, and furniture for the Palo Alto libraries. During 2000-2018, FOPAL contributed over $3 million!

FOPAL gladly accepts:

  • Art (framed or unframed)
  • Fiction and nonfiction books
  • Textbooks and computer books
  • Commercially recorded items: music on CDs or cassettes, audio books on CDs or cassettes, movies on DVD, Blu-ray, or VHS
  • Software and manuals
  • Records (45s, 78s, LPs)
  • Ephemera: printed material, e.g. posters, postcards, travel brochures, greeting and blank cards; also handwritten letters, lists, diaries, journals, photos (color and B&W)
  • Maps (folded or rolled) except AAA maps of the United States
  • Puzzles, games, and toys (stuffed animals accepted)
  • Sheet music
  • Electronics

Sorry, we cannot take:

  • Soiled, moldy, water damaged, or partial books (General Guideline: if you would not give it to a friend, please don’t give it to the Friends!)
  • Magazines or newspapers
  • Reader’s Digest condensed books
  • Encyclopedias
  • Photo albums
  • Small collectibles (figurines, bookends, souvenirs, etc.)
  • Linens
  • Clothing
  • Sports equipment
  • Home copied/burned or non-commercially recorded audio-visual materials
  • Legal statutes or codes
  • Large ephemera such as furniture, lamps, suitcases, etc.
  • American Automobile Association maps of the United States

Drop-off Location/Hours:

Please bring all donations to: FOPAL Main Book Sale Room, Cubberley Community Center, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto (rear of campus, north entrance, next to the tennis courts, see Maps and Directions) Monday through Saturday, 2-4pm, EXCEPT during our monthly sales on the second Saturday of the month and Friday, the day before the sale.

We have hand-carts at the Cubberley Center to help you move boxes from your vehicle to our sorting room.

Please avoid large boxes that are difficult for our volunteers to handle. Copier paper or Banker boxes (10″ x 12″ x 15″) are a manageable size.

If you need to bring donations to us outside of these hours, please call (650) 213-8755 to be sure that a volunteer is available to receive your donations.

Pickup Donations

We do pick up some donations. Our pickup team is volunteers driving their own trucks, minivans, and cars, and their availability and effort is limited.

We pick up from Palo Alto, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Stanford, Atherton, Woodside, and Mountain View. You need to have at least 10 boxes for us to pick up. We need to have places to park our vehicles for loading, and a clear path that doesn’t involve a lot of stairs or other obstructions. We also need at least a week to schedule a pickup, and no pickups will be scheduled in the week before our monthly sale or on the days of our monthly sale (second Saturday of the month and the following Sunday).

If you can meet those requirements, call (650) 308-4933 and leave a message for our pickup team. They will get back to you to schedule a pickup.

Your donations are tax-deductible. Be sure to ask for a receipt.

Thank you for Supporting Palo Alto’s Libraries!