Got moldy, wet, colored-in, nasty, weeded books? Give them a new purpose!

We have this huge box of weeded books in my storage area. It's overflowing with books that have gotten wet, spilled on, have unidentified crusty substances on them, have teeth marks, are falling apart, or are otherwise not suitable for the library shelves. Every library in my district has a similar box or pile, yet no one in my district's admin seems to know what to do with them. They tell us it's against policy to throw them out or give them away. They say they'll come get them at some point in the indeterminate future. And still they sit. For more than a year, the pile has simply grown. So far, no magical library fairies have spirited them away.

Tired of seeing that box everyday, my wonderful library aide (whose position is cut for next year) decided to make lemonade out of those old lemons. She removed any dust jackets that were at all salvageable, cut them up, and made them into:

Bookmarks! These are on cardstock and laminated.

A heart puzzle!  

My aide found a heart puzzle graphic online and took it home to her husband. He used an enlarging machine to make the heart huge. My aide then filled in the pieces with scraps of books. We are putting the heart on a huge banner we have that says "Badgers [heart] books!"

 

 How have you re-purposed your old, weeded library books?

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