September 28, 2005
Book sales bind buyers together
Friends of Traverse Area District Library annual weekend sale brings in $12,600
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Star Trek weighed in with 22 Deep Space Nine videos while hundreds of Harlequin Romances promised a happy ending and famous authors shared space with obscure tomes.
Shoppers packed the main meeting room of the main library Saturday and Sunday during the annual Friends of the Traverse Area District Library Book Sale.
They took home anywhere from a few books to a box filled with treasures, with purchases earmarked for everything from personal finds to future gifts to educational materials.
"I'm Christmas shopping," said Meredith Schnelker of Traverse City. "Nearly everyone in our family are book lovers."
The annual two-day sale raised $12,600 for the non-profit group, a 30 percent increase over last year's total. The money will be used for equipment, special programs and services at the main facility on Woodmere as well as in branch libraries in Kingsley and East Bay and member libraries in Interlochen, Fife Lake and Peninsula Township.
"I think there were more people than we've ever had," said Tom Levi, coordinator of the sale. "We were noting that between when we opened at 9 o'clock on Saturday, there were people lined up from then all the way until 11:30 at the check out lines. And with two counters there and two people per counter, we try to feed them through pretty fast."
The hundreds of browsers and serious shoppers - with everything in between - looked through tables filled with more than 5,000 books. Not to mention shelves overflowing with tapes, CDs and DVDs as well as boxes of extra books under the tables, waiting for space.
The donated books for the sale provided an eclectic assortment of the published word. Black's Law Dictionary, 5th Edition, sat next to a book on birds of South Africa; A Day in the Life of the Soviet Union was adjacent to A Pictorial History of the American Indian, itself next to a Better Homes and Gardens offering on favorite crochet patterns.
"I'm usually looking for adventure books and my husband is looking for books on photography," said Leslie Loy of Traverse City, who attends the event every year with husband, Rick. "This is the place where you can browse and have subject after subject - so many interesting subjects in one room."
Besides the extensive selection, the Loys appreciated the prices, with main tables sorted by price at $2, $3 or $4. Other special collections included sets of books, cookbooks, children's books and signed copies, all of which were individually priced.
"We like the used books because we don't really like the prices of new books," Loy noted. "It is definitely entertaining here, we may come back on Sunday because we have to leave earlier than we like."
Books for the sale are donated to the library all year, where staff first sort through them with an eye to the library's collection. The best of those the library rejects are saved for the annual sale while others are sold for 75 cents each in an ongoing sale.
Starting in August, volunteers begin sorting and pricing the thousands of books stored in the library's third floor. Working in two- or three-hour stretches four days a week, they handle each book in preparation for the sale.
For everyone involved, volunteers, buyers, the library and its patrons, the book sale is an annual win-win event.
"It's real satisfying because you get to see people buying books, which is just a really good thing," noted Levi, one of 15-20 volunteers working during the sale. "People enjoy the variety and you see different people with different interests and they're excited because they're getting deals."
"It's a good community event that gets people interested in the library," he added. "We have people who put it on their calendar every year."