Champaign and Urbana sit back to back in east-central Illinois with the University of Illinois campus wedged between them, and most of the secondhand trade gathers in the two old downtowns rather than on campus. On the Champaign side, Jane Addams Book Shop on North Neil Street and the FriendShop under the public library on West Green Street are separated by only half a mile of downtown blocks, while the Orphans Treasure Box outlet lies about a mile further northwest on Pioneer Street. Urbana packs its four addresses into a couple of blocks: Priceless Books on West Main, the Friends' shelf inside The Urbana Free Library at Race and Green, Spineless Books in the Lincoln Square mall and the Independent Media Center on South Broadway, each one a fifth of a mile or less from its closest companion. Roughly two miles of road separate the two clusters, so most book runs here are two short walks joined by one drive.
Know which door wants your books before you load the car. Among the shops listed here, Jane Addams spells out what it gives for a trade-in: store credit for books. Evening Land Books, a rare-book partnership based in Champaign, also invites sellers, but only through an online form and by appointment, having no storefront. Four more run purely on gifts: the two library groups, Orphans Treasure Box and the Books to Prisoners group on Broadway all stock their tables with whatever the public donates and turn the takings into programs.
Older Champaign-Urbana roundups miss a few recent changes. Spineless Books opened in Urbana in 2026, and Jane Addams now posts on Instagram the schedule it calls permanent. The Books to Prisoners group runs what its organizer calls an annual spring sale, and a WAND report credited two large yearly sales with most of that group's funding.
Used bookstoresJane Addams Book Shop
208 N Neil St, Champaign, IL 61820
Fifteen rooms stacked over three floors on North Neil Street in downtown Champaign, where the shop's about page counts over 70,000 titles and dates the business back to 1984. Books brought in during opening hours earn store credit; anything over one box stays behind while the buyers sort it, the store policy promising a call usually within 24 to 48 hours, and every rejected volume goes on to local charities instead of back to you. The grid above is the one the shop called permanent on Instagram on September 15, 2026, two weeks after a one-off week of 5:30pm weekday closes. Web orders can be picked up curbside or in the shop, while overseas buyers are sent to Biblio.com, the home page explaining that the site has stopped shipping internationally.
Hours: Mon–Fri 10am–6pm, Sat 10am–5pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite Charity bookstore outletOrphans Treasure Box Discount Book Outlet
826 Pioneer St, Champaign, IL 61820
A registered nonprofit on Pioneer Street, 1.1 miles northwest of Jane Addams in Champaign, that sells donated books online through Amazon, Biblio and its own web store and fills a walk-in outlet of five rooms with more. The outlet page sets a ceiling of $3 on every book, and the shop's Instagram kept the bargains coming in 2026: kids' paperbacks at 50 cents each and the hardbacks at a dollar in a post of August 12, ten Star Trek novels for $5 in one of July 14. Profits fund orphan care and the ReStart program, which gives paid work to women leaving addiction, prison, homelessness or abusive homes. Note the short days, with the doors shut by 3pm on weekdays and by 2pm on Saturday.
Hours: Tue–Fri 10am–3pm, Sat 10am–2pm; closed Sun–MonWebsite Friends of the Library bookstoreFriendShop Bookstore
Champaign Public Library, 200 W Green St, Champaign, IL 61820
Downstairs in the Champaign Public Library, half a mile from Jane Addams, volunteers sell more than 20,000 nearly new books, CDs and films with every dollar going back to the library. Most of its published price list runs from a quarter for DVDs and music to $2 for hardbacks and trade paperbacks, with mass-market copies and audiobooks at $1 and a few specially priced picks marked individually. The shop keeps a three-hour afternoon window five days a week instead of the main building's schedule, and the library's October 2026 calendar repeated that window on every Wednesday through Sunday of the month. Paying members get half off for one week from the second Wednesday, while the Tag Bag days that followed, October 21 to 25 in 2026, let anyone fill a grocery-sized bag for a dollar.
Hours: Wed–Sun 1pm–4pmWebsite Used bookstoresSpineless Books
156A Lincoln Square, 300 S Broadway Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Inside the Lincoln Square mall in downtown Urbana, this shop held its grand opening on Friday, June 5, 2026, the date WCIA announced on May 20 when it quoted co-owner William Gillespie on people walking by and asking whether a bookstore was coming, and its Facebook page had already posted a soft-opening video on June 2. Its stock, new and used alike, leans toward fiction, poetry, independent presses, handsome editions and artists' books, with records, toys and framed art on the side and coffee at the counter. Smile Politely's preview described the stock as one alphabetical sequence from A to Z rather than subject sections, with a printed menu at the entrance doing the job of a floor map. Smile Politely's culture roundup of September 8, 2026 was still sending readers into Lincoln Square to check it out, and the week runs Tuesday to Sunday, longest on Friday evenings.
Hours: Tue–Thu noon–6pm, Fri noon–7pm, Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 1pm–5pm; closed MonWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Champaign-Urbana?
The FriendShop under the Champaign Public Library is the cheapest regular shelf, with kids' titles for two quarters and nearly everything else at a dollar or two; if you live locally, the $10 Friends card halves those prices one week a month. Next comes the Orphans Treasure Box outlet on Pioneer Street, where no book goes over $3, though it keeps only weekday and Saturday daytime hours. In Urbana, the Friends of The Urbana Free Library shelf by the Race Street door keeps the library's own hours, evenings included from Monday to Thursday.
Where do I sell used books in Champaign-Urbana?
Jane Addams Book Shop on Neil Street is a walk-in option, paying for books in store credit: more than a box gets left for sorting, with a phone call to follow, and the shop will come out to collections of more than ten boxes for a smaller credit; estates go through [email protected]. For scarce first editions, Evening Land Books takes offers through the form on its website and meets sellers by appointment. The two library groups, the Pioneer Street charity and the prison-book volunteers take donations instead. Before choosing, run the shelf they came from through BiblioScan with a single photo; the app pins a resale estimate on every spine it can identify, separating the handful worth putting online yourself from the leftovers bound for Neil Street and store credit.
Which day is best for book hunting in Champaign-Urbana?
Saturday: of the shops and shelves here that publish a schedule, none is closed that day. Start on Pioneer Street at 10am, since the charity outlet closes at 2pm, drive down to Jane Addams before the FriendShop opens at 1pm, then finish in Urbana, where Spineless Books runs until 5pm and the Friends shelf at the library stays reachable until 6pm. Sunday is a decent second choice for the downtowns, with Jane Addams opening at noon and the FriendShop, Spineless and the Urbana library at 1pm, but the Pioneer Street outlet stays shut, as it does on Monday too.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Champaign-Urbana?
Each town works differently. In Champaign the Friends run sales inside their permanent FriendShop rather than as a separate event: the library's page gives members 50 percent off during the second week of the month and offers everyone a Tag Bag Sale, a full bag for $1, during the closing week of each month. In Urbana the Friends put their own count at roughly three used book sales a year and send shoppers to the library's event calendar for dates; a $10 membership gets you in on the opening members' night.