Where to buy used books in Vaughan

Updated 10/20/2026

Vaughan, a city of 323,103 people at the 2021 census, starts at the north side of Steeles Avenue, and this guide covers all of it: Concord, Woodbridge, Maple, Kleinburg and the slice of Thornhill west of Yonge Street. It also takes in the King Township villages of King City, Nobleton and Schomberg, and the part of Richmond Hill along Yonge Street that sits closer to Vaughan City Hall than to the Markham Civic Centre; the rest of Richmond Hill goes with Markham, and anything south of Steeles is on the Toronto page. Distances are measured from City Hall on Major Mackenzie Drive in Maple, and prices are in Canadian dollars throughout.

For a city past 300,000, the secondhand book trade is slim, and all three stops cluster at the southern edge, less than 4 km apart: a school-book shop that trades in used copies, a travelling library sale with its next dates already posted, and a chain thrift store. None of them is in Woodbridge, Maple, Kleinburg or the King Township villages. The Richmond Hill thrift stores along Yonge Street sit in the tips, with a church book event that is due back in 2027.

Spot map

The best spots

Textbook shop with used copies

The Batner Bookstore

180 Steeles Ave W, Unit 4, Thornhill, ON L4J 2L1

In Thornhill, on the Vaughan side of Yonge Street in a plaza on the north edge of Steeles Avenue West, 9.1 km southeast of City Hall, this school-book shop dates itself to 1983 and says that it buys and sells used textbooks all year. It mostly buys titles for the Ontario curriculum, the International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement courses, often takes used literature and French-language material as well, and only prices a book once staff have it in hand, settling up with a value loaded onto a payment card or with shop credit, but never with cash. Anyone hoping for a secondhand copy joins a first-come, first-served waiting list, with no guarantee that one will turn up. A November 2025 copy of the shop's former website in the Internet Archive already carried those terms, along with the opening hours its current contact page still lists.

Hours: Mon–Wed 10am–6pm, Thu 10am–7pm, Fri 10am–6pm, Sat 11am–5pm, Sun 11am–4pmWebsite

Library book sales

Vaughan Public Libraries Big Book Sale

Dufferin Clark Library, 1441 Clark Ave W, Vaughan, ON L4J 7R4

Inside the Dufferin Clark Community Centre on Clark Avenue West, 7 km south-southeast of City Hall, the library system's Big Book Sale is booked from Sunday, November 22 to Saturday, November 28, 2026, and its program page asks you to bring a regular-sized shopping bag, which $10 lets you pack with books and movies for all ages. The sale travels between branches: a YorkRegion.com story dated August 21, 2026 had it opening the following day at the Civic Centre Resource Library next to City Hall and lasting until August 27, while the October round is scheduled at Woodbridge Library from October 17 to 21, 2026. In 2025 the summer round took over the Civic Centre branch from August 21 to 24, according to a Facebook video the library posted on August 8 of that year.

Hours: November 22, 2026, 9am–5pm; November 23–26, 2026, 9am–9pm; November 27, 2026, 9am–6pm; November 28, 2026, 9am–5pmWebsite

All spots by type

Thrift stores & charity shops

Value Village

Value Village Steeles

1520 Steeles Ave W, Concord, ON L4K 3B9

In Concord, on the Vaughan side of Steeles Avenue West and north of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, 7.9 km from City Hall toward the south-southeast, this outlet of the for-profit Savers chain stays open into the evening every day of the week. On its locator page, books come up only among the donation categories taken at the door and in a run of goods from family clothing to electronics, a phrase the chain's Northview Boulevard page repeats verbatim, so nothing there tells you how big this shelf is. The Internet Archive saved that page in March 2026 with the same address and schedule, and with a 30 per cent Senior Tuesday deal for shoppers aged 60 and up. Count on it as a quick paperback check rather than a book destination; the Dufferin Clark branch of the library sits a short drive north up Dufferin Street.

Hours: Mon–Sat 9am–9pm, Sun 10am–7pmWebsite

Scan before you buy

At every one of these spots, snap the shelf with BiblioScan: the AI identifies each book and shows its real resale price. Walk out with profitable books, not random boxes.

Try BiblioScan for free

Local sourcing tips

Value Village runs two more stores in this area: 101 Northview Boulevard in Woodbridge, which the chain places north of the Cineplex and near Home Depot, and 10620 Yonge Street in Richmond Hill. Neither branch publishes anything about books beyond the company-wide stock blurb, so a visit is a gamble on whatever paperbacks came in that week.
On Yonge Street in Richmond Hill, the Salvation Army's thrift store at number 11300, Unit 4, includes books and media among the goods it stocks, but the charity's thrift website prints that same list on every branch page. It closes on Sundays, and the page offers seniors 10 per cent off every day and students 15 per cent with a Student Price Card.
Richmond Hill United Church, at 10201 Yonge Street, held its fourth Areyougoingtobe Book Event in mid-September 2025, a community sale stocked with donated books. A news post on the church's website dated August 25, 2026 says renovations and other factors pushed the fifth edition back to 2027, in either spring or fall, with the date still to come.
Sustainable Books, a book-recycling warehouse at 51 Caldari Road in Concord, has no shop floor, but it takes books at its door during weekday drop-off hours, with no appointment needed, and offers free pickups across the GTA and nearby Ontario towns. By its own account, some of what it collects is resold to pay for the operation, partly through the online book shop its website links to, and the rest goes to literacy programs or a paper recycler.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Vaughan?

At Vaughan's travelling library sale, where a shopping bag you bring yourself costs $10 to fill with books or movies; the Woodbridge branch has it through Wednesday, October 21, 2026, and Dufferin Clark Library takes over for the whole week of November 22. Between sales, the Value Village on Steeles is the thrift rack to try, although the chain gives no idea how many books this branch carries. Parents after course texts can ask Batner to add them to its waiting list for used copies.

Where do I sell used books in Vaughan?

School texts have a buyer in Thornhill: Batner assesses Ontario-curriculum, IB and AP books over the counter, never by phone or email, and credits the amount to a debit or credit card or to store credit, while novels and French titles often pass too. Everything else is an online job: Amazon.ca and eBay.ca for titles worth posting, Kijiji or Marketplace for local pickup. To split a box quickly, lay the books spine-out for one shot in BiblioScan, check the resale value the app puts against each spine it knows, and leave whatever scores too low to bother listing at the Sustainable Books drop-off in Concord.

When is the big library book sale in Vaughan?

Vaughan Public Libraries rotates its Big Book Sale among its branches, and the program page lists two rounds for the fall of 2026: a five-day stint at the Woodbridge branch that closes on the 21st of October, then Dufferin Clark Library for a full week, Sunday the 22nd to Saturday the 28th of November, during branch hours. The summer round filled the Civic Centre branch in Maple in late August. On October 20, 2026, the program page listed no dates for 2027.

Before you go

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Nearby cities

Toronto Markham Barrie Guelph

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