Is there a place online where I can apply for a bunch of free books? I was thinking of creating a library in my local county jail to help educate and pass the time in a healthy way?
be advised that these programs are often co-opted by local officials to boost numbers and reduce actual available services to incarcerated populations, or to deflect blame for employee drug smuggling
your experience will vary depending on the county
its wise to partner with an existing, experienced program first to learn the field a bit and avoid the pitfalls counties lay for beginners
for example, many counties will use bureaucratic expense approval hurdles or materials clearance and transportation hurdles to slow down and exhaust your efforts, but there are people with the specific experience and networks to navigate that stuff already in some cases
And the county may very well just say no, without providing a reason (the unspoken reason may just be that the cruelty is the point)
Prison Book Program https://prisonbookprogram.org/ & Books to prisoners https://www.bookstoprisoners.net/
Give more info about location and language, then maybe people can help better.
Also maybe asking in the local community for book donations might be an option.
Don’t be shy to put up a book donation flyer in the local wallmart or something if allowed.
Lot of people have books rotting away in basements they wanna offload.
A local or regional library often (but not always) serves jails in their community already. If not, they may be open to extending operations there. If that fails, libraries often rotate out stock to make room for newer, or more popular books. Anything they dispose of would be older, but for this situation, that may not be as much of an issue.
Project Gutenberg, if ebooks
When I hear people talking about books, they often speak of them as if it was a comodity. Do some people just read a random book every once in a while?
What am I missing?
People like to read?
I'm not sure what you're asking. I grew up with books as gifts and access to a library. I would literally sometimes read a random book. Some of my favorite books are unknown because they're old and not remarkable to most people. They just got read by me at the right time to leave a lasting impression.
Just put a sign out front and a box.
I want to add that I’ve heard you can get cheaper postal rates if it’s a book.
"Media mail" for books and other media
Independent book sellers. Sounds weird, why would they give books away for free? I have a friend who sells books online and buys huge lots of books to resell, many of which are not resellable due to condition or oversaturation in the market. I have gotten a truly obscene amount of free books from her because of this. Lots of sellers have books they want to unload and often have to resort to throwing them away.