HELOISE: Uses for old books: Ideas abound

Dear Readers: A recent column asked readers for suggestions concerning the disposal of old encyclopedias. Boy, did we get a response! Here is what some readers had to say:

Chris E. of Houston says: “Contact a local theater troupe. Older encyclopedias make great set dressing and help fill up bookcases. Finding enough free books can be difficult for community theaters.”

Nancy Shore of Salt Lake City says: “I donated my encyclopedia set to a charitable foundation that sent it to a school in the Philippines. The schools have very few books and no encyclopedias. There are many English-speaking countries that would love to have our old books for their classrooms.”

Katey D., via e-mail, says: “Encyclopedias, dictionaries and similar are in high demand by artists who make art with altered books because of their strong, sewn spines. I suggest going online to find an altered-book art group that wants them.” (An altered book is one that has been made into a work of art. It might be re-bound, folded or trimmed in gold leaf, for example.)

Carolyn Hubenak, via e-mail, says: “What to do with all those old encyclopedia sets? Market them as scrapbooks. When my sister and I were in school, our parents bought a set of encyclopedias for our schoolwork. After that, my mother used the set to keep newspaper clippings, business cards, family paper memorabilia, photos ... each filed alphabetically, so for Priscilla’s items, they were in the volume P, and so forth. It is so fun to choose a letter-volume and look through memories of the past 40 years.”

Tom Hammer of Massillon, Ohio, says, “A way to use old encyclopedias is to have students in class take a sheet that, say, has the Soviet Union on it and have two or three students update the information.”

Janet Howder, via e-mail, says: “Contact a home-schooling organization. It probably depends on how old the books are, but as home-schoolers, we use a 1992 set frequently for research. We prefer to hold a book rather than use the Internet.”

Sofia, via e-mail, says, “Old encyclopedias make great ‘practice’ books for all those who are learning English as a second language.”

King Features Syndicate