You're right. I suspect that most book donations to libraries are used books from people's personal collections. There are, however, a few philanthropists out there, willing to give new books to libraries, including some authors who hang out here on LJ. Author Joshua Palmatier (jpsorrow) recently held a Spirit of Giving contest (http://jpsorrow.livejournal.com/172643.html) in which he asked his flist to help him gather donation information for their local libraries, to each of which he sent copies of The Skewed Throne and The Cracked Throne and, in at least one instance (his offer wasn't good enough for my persnickety library) two sets. In exchange for our helping him be generous, he held a random drawing from among those who got the contact information to him, the winner of which received a hardback set of the entire trilogy (which included the two books already mentioned, plus The Vacant Throne.

Some of the people I've spoken to about this have suggested that the possibility of such a fee holding up in court seems to be unlikely. I know they explained their reasoning (based on legal precedents, etc.), but those explanations didn't stick well enough for me to pass them along. Also, there will always be used books available as I don't imagine for a minute that it would have an effect on garage sales. As proposed, library sales are also excluded, so they would continue, and books more than two years old (the vast majority of used books) would still be excluded. But, I also find the proposal disturbing in a very Orwellian fashion, the kind of thing that acts as the toe in the door, and so I felt compelled to spread the word.