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What the 11 News Investigates team found in the garbage is sure to make book lovers, charities and others extremely upset.

KHOU-TV

Thousands of books were found in the Dumpsters.

It may sound hard to believe, but we discovered thousands of perfectly good books, like a John Grisham novel and children’s books, in the trash.

Where did they come from? The Harris County Public Library.

Thousands of other library books in good condition are getting thrown out too, sometimes right next to charities or even schools that could have used them.

It just seems like something you wouldn’t throw away, thousands of good books paid for with your tax dollars.

And it’s not just your tax dollars that are ending up in these bins. 

“You’re talking about the literacy of your community. If they give that up, that’s a sad, sad thing,” said Jim Hundemer, president of the Friends of the Houston Public Library.

Just one example? We found one of the most popular books Dr. Seuss ever wrote, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” tossed in a recycling bin.  

No matter your age or your interests, checking out a good book from the library can you teach you things you always wanted to learn, or take you to places you’ve never been.

So why have these passports to the imagination ended up here, making local book lovers and charities cringe?

Timothy Rose couldn’t believe it. 

“We’re here dropping off our paper recycling products, you know, the newspapers we’ve accumulated,” said Rose, a parishioner from St. Dunstan’s Church across the street.

He was upset because he saw all of the books and DVDs that were being tossed out.

“It’s not something that should end up in a dumpster. For one thing, those are my tax dollars,” Rose said. “And two, people that could use them are being deprived.”

So what kind of books were they? Harris County Library books.  And the library didn’t want them anymore.   

Most of what we found was still in great shape, even bestselling novels from James Patterson and many others.

They all ended up in a recycling dumpster, instead of in someone’s home.

“I’m sure a lot of the people in the nursing homes, kids, would love to have this kind of stuff, “Rose said.

You name the subject: business, children’s books and more.  We found it here, along with books that teach people how to speak English.

So just how much did we find? It turns out, when we went digging; we found books, magazines, and video cassettes, piled as far as we could see, all the way to the bottom of the dumpster.  

But what we found doesn’t just end here. Not far  away we found another bin, piled high with everything from popular DVD movies to a 10-CD set about Abraham Lincoln.

Taxpayers once paid $87 for that set, and it still works just fine.

“Please for goodness sake, don’t throw ‘em away,” said Hundemer, “Literacy is a wonderful thing. To put it in a dumpster some place  is ridiculous.”

Hundemer’s organization is a non-profit group that takes in discarded books from Houston’s libraries and sells them, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

“A good read is a good read,” he said.

Which is why he’s offering to save all these items Harris County doesn’t want.

“I’ll pay for a truck to come get ‘em,” he said.

It turns out, the county library does sell their books to a vendor.

His name is C.R. Kirkpatrick.  Last year he received 60,000 books, DVDs and more.  It’s equivalent to nearly 2.5 percent of the library’s entire collection.

At $25-$30 a piece, experts say the County probably spent about $1.5 million to buy the books it discarded over the last year.

So how much did they sell them for?  A mere 3 cents a pound- for a grand total of $2,672.

How then, did the books end up in the dumpster?

On a separate day at a different site, we found even more recycling bins piled high with Harris County Library books. We watched a woman throw box after box of the books away.

When we followed her, we ended up at the Book Corner in Spring.

That’s where Christina Oberholtzer sells books.

“I am a partner in this store,” she said, “we sell almost every book here at 90 percent off.”

She says she has bought them from C.R. Kirkpatrick in the past.

But now this enterprising college student says donating everything to local charities or even troops overseas would probably be a better community service.

Cathy Park, Director of the Harris County Public Library said, “The value of the discarded books is very, very little. I think the majority of the books you could say, are worn out, outdated.”

So what about a hardcover Harry Potter book we found, one of multiple copies?

“It’s very popular, when it came out,” Park said, “But at some point, they’re not as popular as when we bought them. And there’s no room on the shelf to house all the copies. So they’re put in discard.”

And why would the library pay top dollar for a brand new copy of a Curious George book and discard another?

“We are not a Houston Public Library system that really keeps older materials in archives. We don’t have the room or the space,” said Park.

So why not donate these items to local charities?

Or what about a book sale like the Houston Public Library does?

Park says she’s asked her own group of volunteers to take in the discards and sell them, but says they haven’t wanted to do that in the past.

“We’re making an effort to change that policy,” she said.

It’s a policy the author of a Berenstein Bears book we found in the dumpster teaches to children: to Think of Those In Need.  But it’s a lesson that adults sometimes need a reminder about.

Remember, this is the Harris County Library, not the city of Houston.

We did leave repeated messages with the county’s vendor, C.R. Kirkpatrick, but he never got back to us. 

And we should note we never saw anyone from his business dumping any books.

But it turns out Kirkpatrick may not be picking them up anymore.

The Harris County Library said he has now pulled out of his contract, due to health concerns.   

For now, it plans to replace him with a vendor from Georgia that the library says would sell all the discards on the internet.  Under the proposed plan, Harris County would receive less than $5,000 from the new vendor, and would not receive any extra revenue for books the company successfully sells.  

However, Cathy Park said that plan could change if the Friends of the Harris County Library or another local charitable group decide to bid on the contract.  She adds it might also change if Harris County Commissioners Court decides it wants to donate some or all of the discarded books to local charities instead.

Until that happens though, the library plans to formally ask Commissioners Court to approve the contract with the new vendor at the Court’s meeting Aug. 8, 2006.