Simply Textbook collects unwanted academic books FREE of charge from staff at any university premises in England 🏴 and Wales 🏴
Just select the books that you no longer wish to keep, and let Simply Textbook take care of the rest.
It is an easy, uncomplicated and reliable process, with collections directly from your office.
Home collections
Home collections can be arranged at a discounted rate of £35 per visit. If you live within very easy reach of your university campus (an easy 5-10 minute drive away), AND Simply Textbook has a visit to your university scheduled, this charge may be waived.
University email address required for free collections
To qualify for a free university campus collection, please specify your university email address (university.ac.uk) in your request form.
If you are not serving university staff, or retired longer than 1 year ago, please click here.
Where Simply Textbook collects from 🌎
Simply Textbook is very happy to collect from any university location in England 🏴 and Wales 🏴. This may be subject to minimum quantity requirements, and other logistical considerations.
From April 2024, Simply Textbook very reluctantly discontinued offering collections in Scotland 🏴. Being based in the south of England, the time, distance and cost of visits to Scotland became too much of a stretch to continue being economically viable.
It is not viable for Simply Textbook to collect outside of mainland Great Britain, including addresses in the Isle of Wight, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Republic of Ireland.
Since being established in 2017, Simply Textbook has had the pleasure of collecting books from staff at the following universities:
Aberdeen ▪️ Aberystwyth ▪️ Anglia Ruskin ▪️ Aston ▪️ Bangor ▪️ Bath Spa ▪️ Bedfordshire ▪️ Birkbeck ▪️ Birmingham ▪️ Bolton ▪️ Brighton ▪️ Bristol ▪️ Brunel ▪️ Buckingham ▪️ Cambridge ▪️ Cardiff ▪️ Central Lancashire ▪️ Chester ▪️ City ▪️ Coventry ▪️ Derby ▪️ Dundee ▪️ Durham ▪️ East Anglia ▪️ Edge Hill ▪️ Edinburgh ▪️ Essex ▪️ Exeter ▪️ Falmouth ▪️ Glasgow ▪️ Glion Institute of Higher Education ▪️ Glyndŵr ▪️ Goldsmiths ▪️ Hertfordshire ▪️ Hull ▪️ Imperial College ▪️ Keele ▪️ King’s College London ▪️ Lancaster ▪️ Leeds ▪️ Leeds Trinity ▪️ Leicester ▪️ Liverpool ▪️ Liverpool Hope ▪️ Liverpool John Moores ▪️ London School of Economics ▪️ London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine ▪️ Loughborough ▪️ Manchester ▪️ Manchester Metropolitan ▪️ Newcastle ▪️ New York University in London ▪️ Northumbria ▪️ Nottingham ▪️ Nottingham Trent ▪️ Open University ▪️ Oxford ▪️ Oxford Brookes ▪️ Plymouth ▪️ Plymouth Marjon ▪️ Queen Mary UoL ▪️ Reading ▪️ Robert Gordon ▪️ Royal Holloway ▪️ Royal Veterinary College ▪️ Salford ▪️ Sheffield ▪️ Sheffield Hallam ▪️ SOAS ▪️ Southampton ▪️ Southampton Solent ▪️ South Wales ▪️ Staffordshire ▪️ Stirling ▪️ Strathclyde ▪️ Sussex ▪️ University Academy ’92 ▪️ University College London ▪️ UWE Bristol ▪️ Wales Trinity St David ▪️ Warwick ▪️ Wolverhampton ▪️ York ▪️ York St John
Always looking to add to this list!
Minimum or maximum quantity? 🧮
In the early days before the Covid pandemic, Simply Textbook used to proactively contact university staff offering routine termly collections on a specific date each term. Covid pretty much broke that model, so this proactive policy evolved into a reactive model, where university staff reach out to request a collection.
This does make collecting smaller quantities a little harder to manage logistically, but all attempts will be made to collect regardless of quantity. Smaller quantities may result in a longer wait for a collection date to be scheduled.
For any collection date to go ahead, Simply Textbook needs to be collecting at least half a van load, which roughly equates to around 750 books. This can either be at your university, and/or aggregated between your university and other universities in the city/region, and/or aggregated with private residential collections in the area.
As long as there is a combined total in the region of 750 books, it doesn’t actually matter how that 750 is reached.
The upper limit per visit is 1500 books in total, which is the maximum capacity of the van.
Who Simply Textbook collects from 🧑🏫
Simply Textbook would love to hear from any member of university staff in England and Wales that needs to safely and conveniently pass on any books they no longer require.
Perhaps you are a Professor approaching retirement, or an Admin or Facilities Manager tasked with clearing an office in a hurry. Whatever your circumstances, if you have books that you need to conveniently dispose of without any threat of them ending up in landfill, please get in touch.
Suitable for collection ✅
Simply Textbook specialises in academic books, but also collects ANY published books with ISBN.
Academic and non-academic. Fiction and non-fiction. ANY subject, genre, language, age, condition. Any published book with an ISBN, full stop.
Simply Textbook also accepts original music CDs, movie DVDs/Blu-Rays (no audio or VHS cassettes); and gaming console discs. No copies.
Not suitable for collection ❌
Simply Textbook does NOT accept the following:
Journals, periodicals, brochures, pamphlets, booklets, prospectuses, magazines, manuals, directories, folders, dissertations, reports, conference proceedings, photocopied items, or any other item that is not a published book with ISBN.
No books in serious state of disrepair – covers/spines falling off, missing pages, excessive handwritten annotations (underlining, highlighting, written notes).
Large multi-volume sets such as Encyclopaedia Britannica may be rejected.
Oversize books, including dictionaries and atlases may be rejected.
Simply Textbook has no productive onward outlet for books that pre-date ISBN (approximately 1970), leaving recycling as the only option. Where recycling is the only option, such items may be rejected.
Please arrange for any unsuitable items to be recycled via your university recycling procedure ♻️
While single copies of books are straightforward to redistribute; tens, dozens or hundreds of copies of the same book can be considerably more challenging. Please notify in advance of any large quantities of duplicate titles.
From an environmental perspective, it is not desirable for Simply Textbook to add unnecessary mileage to items clearly destined for recycling. They should take the shortest route to recycling as possible.
How Simply Textbook collects 🚛
Unlike some other book collectors and collection services, Simply Textbook always come to you and collects directly from where your books are located.
You are not asked to move the books anywhere much further than outside your office door (if safe to do so), and no further heavy lifting is required from you at all. No picking and choosing takes place, all the ISBN published books that you present for collection will be collected.
You can choose to load the books into boxes, or leave them loose.
If you have large quantities of duplicates, please mention this in your request form.
The van can carry up to a maximum of around 1500 average sized/weight books in one trip. If you think you might have more books than this, please mention this in your request form.
For home collections, Simply Textbook does not come into your home to unload shelves and bookcases. Books MUST be boxed or bagged up in advance, and be ready for collection at ground level. Books can be left outside your property, please ensure that they are kept completely dry if rain looks likely.
Payments 💷
Simply Textbook does not offer payment for any books.
Collections on campus are offered free of charge. Home collections are charged at £35 per visit.