If spring cleaning has you inching your old books and journals ever closer to the trash, stop right there and consider donating them instead.

To aid you in this endeavor, here are a few organizations that accept donations of books and periodicals*:

• Bridge to Asia seeks donations of books mostly for China. They accept donations of used and new academic and scholarly books, journals, monographs, databases and other materials, in English and all other languages, in all academic fields and professional practices.
• Books for International Goodwill, a program in Lothian, Maryland, supported mainly by the Parole Rotary Club of Annapolis, Maryland, will accept used books. BIG is also seeking volunteers help to sort books and to pack them for sending to various destinations.
• The Asia Foundation is another agency that collects and distributes books and periodicals for use in more than 40 countries in Asia under its Books for Asia Program. While the foundation mostly expects donations from publishers, it also accepts gifts from individuals.
• The Book Project of the World Bank Family Network, located in Washington D.C., is a nonprofit organization “founded in 1982 for the purpose of shipping donated books to developing countries.” Books are accepted from schools, public libraries, universities, and individual donors in the District of Columbia and neighboring states.
• Teachers Across Borders is a 501(c)(3) organization that is collecting reading materials that can support its educational work in Cambodia.

*Please note that these are only suggestions, not official endorsements from the AHA. This post is a reworked version of an article, written by Pillarisetti Sudhir, that appeared in AHA Today on November 20, 2006.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.