Well, the one where I grew up. It has rotating exhibits of local historical and civic artifacts. It basically has a small wing that functions as a mini museum.

A lot of towns have one or more mini-museums of that sort. They might be attached to a library, to city hall, to a school, or even a volunteer organization or something.

Donating it to a library can make perfect sense in that case. It really depends on the library.

I mean the vast majority of book donations to my town library presumably end up at the annual book sale along with culls from the library itself. And, based on how many books are left near the end of the sale, I assume the majority probably ends up pulped.

Even better. I forgot about how libraries' core business includes letting their inventory depreciate, then replace.

Can you elaborate, with a source or two? That's a bold claim and I've never heard of such a thing.

Look up 'library weeding'. Most libraries don't aspire to be an archive of everything, or they'd be called an archive, not a library.

If materials don't circulate, they don't belong at the library. When materials circulate a lot, they wear out and need to be repaired and eventually replaced.

Bold claim to say libraries have to re-buy books after too much use?

Sarcasm?

Demand also changes. Some author like Dan Brown is all the rage for a while. Ten years later, they may not need all those copies--maybe just keep the one or two copies of some title that are in the best shape. To greater or lesser degrees, libraries do review their circulation records. If a circulatable book hasn't been out for ten years it's probably a candidate for deletion unless it has some unique interest.

Sorry, I think I misread your original comment as implying that libraries were somehow overbuying, or replacing books that didn't need it.

I think I assumed you were using the term "core business" sarcastically... maybe I'm just used to so much snark on HN and the internet in general that now I'm seeing it when it's not there. :S

Never mind, sorry for the confusion!