Here is what the official policy is at Mid-Continent Library. (I have done a bit of work up there and know the IT Manager whose wife works in the cataloging section.):

We'll take any books that people want to donate. It's our policy that we

don't turn away any books. We try to use every book we get. If we can't

use them we'll try other library systems. We do everything we can so we

don't just have to dispose of them.

So take the books up there to them.

From: kclug-bounces@kclug.org [mailto:kclug-bounces@kclug.org] On Behalf Of cragos@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 10:57 AM
To: Jonathan Hutchins; kclug@kclug.org
Subject: Re: Old Computer Book Recycling?

>> 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