STOCKTON — To say he values the written word is a bit of an understatement about Nathan Werth.

The Stockton man writes grant proposals for a living, but he’s also a member of the Library and Literacy Foundation board and volunteered to launch the Facebook page of the Little Free Library program in Stockton. When he found out that some 100,000 books were about to be turned into recycled pulp, he took action.

The result is those books — cleared out of the upper story of Heins and Co. Used and Rare Books in Jackson to make way for the proprietors’ Baker Street West project — are at the Port of Stockton waiting for good homes.

The Big Free Library Giveaway, in which more than 80,000 titles will be dispersed for free, is Friday and Saturday in the Intelligent Wireless Networks warehouse at 712 W. Luce St., Building 712 at the Port of Stockton on Rough and Ready Island. Hours of the giveaway are 1-5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.

“It’s open to anybody who wants to collect books: local organizations with little libraries, community centers and churches, senior service programs that have two-bookshelf libraries or need books to start them,” Werth said. “I hope they show up and bring a big truck.”

Few have as much sense of what 80,000 books look like as Werth. He’s the one who took the initiative to contact the Heins — Wolf and Linda — when someone who follows the Little Free Libraries Facebook page mentioned the couple was getting rid of books.

Werth knew the Little Free Library program, with a goal of 100 libraries in Stockton, wouldn’t need 80,000 books, but he couldn’t stand the thought of books being destroyed. He began making trips to Jackson with a rented U-Haul truck to gather them and figured he’d come up with what to do with them later. He soon ran out of storage space, but Steve and Gina Davis offered up the warehouse space of their company, Intelligent Wireless Networks, to house them, and 209 Furniture owner Basel Karabala paid his drivers to make trips to the foothills to bring down loads of books.

He and others with Little Free Libraries came up with the giveaway of mostly adult-level reading books of all genres. There are paperback works of fiction and hardbound history books. There are self-help books, cookbooks, diet books, some on health and fitness, and just about anything else. There’s no limit on the number of books anyone can take.

Although he doesn’t expect a “Pokemon Go”-type run on the warehouse, Werth said there will be volunteers to help book hunters. He’s relying on the call he put out on social media for people to show up and help with the distribution.

— Contact reporter Lori Gilbert at (209) 546-8284 or lgilbert@recordnet.com. Follow her on Twitter @lorigrecord.