>> If you go down to the Mid-Continent library administrative offices on 24
>> hwy in Independence you can donate them to the library and they will
>> give you a receipt to use as a charitable donation on your taxes.
>Pretty much any library will accept donations. Most are simply landfilled,
>but some are sold at annual book sales or on carts in the library. It costs
>too much for the library to process a donated book to make it worth taking
>them into the collection; purchased books come with a lot of the necessary
>pre-processing already done.
Hopefully they do recycle them. To answer the initial question, it is possible to recycle the paper in these books. I believe they can take such material at the city drop off points:
http://www.kcmo.org/pubworks.nsf/web/recycledropoff?opendocument
There's one at Metro North Mall that I use that I'm all but certain could take it.
Hope this helps,
Sean Crago/MrZaius