Boxes of books are being dumped by Oxfordshire libraries without being offered to charities.

Some of the books are ripped or damaged, but many are simply unwanted. Oxfordshire County Council said it tries to sell them, but if the books cannot be sold they are thrown in a skip to be pulped.

They are not offered to charities as the county believes if it cannot sell them, charities would also struggle to offload the books.

But Age Concern said some of the unwanted titles could be sold in its new city bookshop and others could simply be given away to elderly residents or old people's homes.

The charity plans to open a new bookshop and Internet cafe in Cowley Road, Oxford, in June, and the man overseeing the project said he would welcome the chance to save books from the skip.

Joe Sweeney said: "If we cannot sell them here we can try to sell them through our traditional charity shops.

"After that, nothing gets thrown away. We would recycle them and we could make some money out of that."

Some of the books include titles by recent big selling writers such as celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and military writer Andy McNab.

The county's principal librarian Caroline Taylor said: "The council constantly refreshes its book stock to ensure that our readers have a steady supply of new books - we have just bought 120 copies of the latest Harry Potter, for instance.

"Books may be removed from library shelves for a number of reasons. They may be old, out of date, in poor condition or not issuing well."

Ms Taylor said books at the end of their life were sold and raised £33,000 for the library service last year.

But she added: "Despite our best efforts, some just don't sell and have to be otherwise disposed of, so we send them to be recycled into card or paper. We don't offer them to charity shops because if we can't sell them, it's unlikely they would be able to either."