Annual Library Book Sale

Homecoming! The campus is filled with parents of current students, alumni of all ages, friends of the college, community members. Outside the Library a huge white tent is erected to house the Bazaar. A magic jump house suddenly appears. Tables and chairs are transported from thither to yon, set up for one event, taken down and reset for another.

We set up a booksale on the patio outside, praying that the rain would hold off. Before we scarcely got the bookcarts through the door people descended to see what we had to offer. And we have everything. From old medical manuals about knees to children's books to the latest novel to collector's guides. Some books that were donated were duplicates of items already in our collection. Others were given specifically to help us raise funds to preserve some of our older (aka 1700's) unique and historic books.

It took Sharon and Phil and I over an hour to set up the four tables and three bookcarts, get the signs hung, and bring out the cash box and bags. Business came in waves as other activities on campus waxed and waned. Clumps of people looking for a respite from the steady wind, or for a bathroom, wandered past our tables, stopping to see what treasures we might have to offer.

Who can resist a good bargain? We even set the prices a bit higher than most book sales to try and raise more money for our preservation project, and no one objected to the prices at all. Most popular were the children's books. We as a society apparently believe our children should read books! We sold almost all of those even though there were relatively few children who were at the sale.

Next most popular were the two or three year old textbooks for alumni who had been out of school by at least a decade. Catching up given the chance. Not caring that the book wasn't cutting edge, just more recent than their last exposure. Filling in gaps. If we had a nickel for every time someone read the title of the medical book on Knees, we could have preserved our whole collection! Must be we have a knee fetish.

A few people bought enough books to need a box to carry them off. Others overfilled a plastic grocery sack, while some just stuffed their finds into their carryalls. Some stood for hours pouring over every title, others glanced, grabbed and moved on. A few debated carefully how to get the most for their limited amount of funding, selecting only the perfect ones. Others intentionally passed us by, waving their hands and shaking their heads over the plethora of books already residing in their living rooms.

In the end, although we did very well, you could scarcely tell that we had made even a small dent in the pile of books (other than the empty children's table). The remainder will go back in storage until our next book sale when they will again debut in hopes of finding a good home. Meanwhile, we will look into an Amazon account. Perhaps we can put a few up for adoption that way.