If the proposed city budget is adopted, the Austin Public Library’s used bookshop on Burnet Road, Recycled Reads, will close by the spring of next year.
To help raise funds for Austin’s library system, the store opened its doors in 2009. Since 2021, Anna Paola Ferate-Soto has been employed at the store. Additionally, she noted, the idea has prevented tons of books and other materials from ending up in local landfills.
However, when the store’s contract expires in March of next year, it may close. The adjustment is included in the 2026 city budget proposal. In order to eliminate an anticipated $33 million shortfall, Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax presented the City Council with a balanced $6.3 billion budget.
According to Broadnax, he was able to reduce the deficit in a number of areas, such as by terminating some building leases, changing the personnel of Austin Fire, and paying overtime to Austin Police.
The city would save $107,000 next year if the lease for the location of Recycled Reads were terminated now. However, that does not imply that the store’s essence would vanish.
According to Austin Public Library spokesperson Baylor Johnson, the library would spread the Recycled Reads experience across all of its branches rather than just one central place if the business closes next spring.
Explore the aisles devoted to Recycled Reads and discover shelves brimming with puzzles, board games, music, movies, and books. The Scarlet Letter, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, language books, cookbooks, books on crafts and home renovation, old sheet music, vinyl albums, CDs, and cassette cassettes are all available.
The majority of it costs $2 or less.
Unused materials from Austin Public Library branches and gifts from the local community make up the collection. That, according to Ferate-Soto, is what distinguishes some of the materials.
“We often receive really unique stuff,” she remarked. When retiring professors bring their materials, they are looking for a place where people will value them. or a few deceased individuals. They hope that others would be able to enjoy the wealth that their loved ones left behind, and they offer their library to us.
In addition to having a large selection of products for sale, Recycled Reads also functions as a hybrid library where patrons can check out tools and equipment, a passport office, and a seed library.
According to Ferate-Soto, a librarian with the Austin Public Library, this is a library where patrons can purchase reasonably priced materials as well as materials they might not discover elsewhere.
According to her, the funds raised have been used to buy the Bookmobile, a mobile library that offers access to resources in different locations throughout the city.
However, not all books are able to find a home. In order to transfer some inventory to nearby locations, the bookstore collaborates with Goodwill. The books eventually go through a recycling process that keeps them out of landfills if they are unable to find a home.
Used books and media are currently available for purchase in a limited part of many Austin library branches. According to Johnson, these tiny areas will expand and attempt to embrace what has made Recycled Reads so unique in the event that the Burnet site closes.
According to Johnson, we are undoubtedly working on creating procedures to ensure that the features that have made Recycled Reads special can be replicated across the system. However, I believe that increasing accessibility is one advantage of attempting to decentralize it.
He added that all of the programming and employees at the Burnet Road facility would be transferred to other branches. It’s only a few blocks to the Yarborough branch.
However, the budget must be approved by the city council before the adjustment may take place. Johnson said a schedule is still being worked out, but if adopted, he expects sales to end early next year. It is anticipated that the budget will not be adopted until August.
As part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting collaboration with KUT, this story was created.
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