As many know by now, once a month I attend a special sale hosted by Friends of Washoe County Library. Each time, I do pretty well. I’m averaging 20 books a pop. However, with the economy the way it is, not to mention the current status of my TBR shelves, I debated about going.
For the first time since I moved here and discovered this sale, I considered skipping the event. Instead of getting up early, and being one of the first in line, I slept in and went to work on writing a review for a recent read.
But it gnawed at me. Hard.
When I couldn’t take it anymore, I tweeted about my angst of not going. Amy of “My Friend Amy” made a comment that reminded me of the reason I go to these sales. Actually it was one word in particular: Community.
I support my community by supporting my community library.
This realization was especially poignant after learning about what is going on with the Philadelphia Free Library System.
Update: Plan C averted, city gets its budget (Courtesy of Philly.com)
It saddens me to think that a library, any library, is forced to close its doors to the public. I feel so helpless. What can I do? How can one person make a difference?
Perhaps not much. But if others, such as myself, support the efforts of those like the Friends of the Library, we can help prevent the loss of a vital resource, if only a local one.
You may be unaware of this, but the Friends of the Library is a national organization. I urge you to visit the link I’ve provided to find out more and to find a local chapter.
Now more than ever, they need us bibliophiles to step up and do what we can to show our support.
As I’ve reported before, the sales I attend do quite well. In fact, this is taken from a recent newsletter:
More than $105,000 was distributed to a variety of projects and branches of the Washoe County Library System by Friends of Washoe CountyLibrary at the close of calendar 2008, under an allocations system established years earlier.
Allocation funds are derived from the Friends’ twice yearly from Booksale Bonanza, monthly book sales . . . and from the Secondhand Prose book store in the Northwest Reno Library and other fund raising endeavors.
The most recent allocations “pool” totaled $115,289.74, from which ten percent was taken off the top by the Friends Board of Directors to invest in the organization’s Second Century Endowment Fund. That’s the device created several years ago to guarantee long-range continuation of the Library’s vital service to its county-wide community.
Thanks to Amy, I re-committed myself to attending, and was up and out the door long before they closed. I was unsure I would find anything as it had been hours since they opened.
Silly me!
- A Louisa May Alcott Anthology
- The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
- The American by Henry James
- The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
- Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
- Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
- White Oleander by Janet Fitch
- Light On Snow by Anita Shreve
- The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
- Postcards by E. Annie Proulx
- To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
- The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde
- The Innocent by Ian McEwan
Believe it or not, many of these were on my list as they are part of several projects I am working on (The Pulitzer Project, 1001 Books, and Notable Books). So they were all justified AND the proceeds go to something very important.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my Saturday or my money. How about you?
I never thought about it that way. I always mean to stay away from these sales since I have so many books to read but I always give in. I also try to donate to our library foundation directly because I would hate to see our library close.
If you don’t attend the sales, donating to the foundation is just as good in my book!
Thank you for making the extra effort to support your library!
Great post, thank you and Amy for reminding all of us of the “community” aspect of our relationship with our local library!
That’s a nice haul.
I’ve never been to a library sale–for some reason I’ve lived in a vacuum and didn’t even realize there was such a thing until a few months ago. I missed the one earlier this year (by a day, literally), but I marked the next one on my calendar so I’ll be sure to go.
For me it has been a positive experience each time. Except for once when dealing with someone using a scanner, but it was the individual really. Every one I’ve seen since then has been bery polite.
Ask them about a mailing list. Ours does that now and it is very nice to receive reminder postcards a few weeks before the sale.
I love my library book sales…I just have to be careful not to buy back books I’ve donated!
I agree that saving our libraries is crucial. I can’t imagine my community without one.
Great post. I love library book sales, too! I also donate a lot of my read books to them so they have something to sell ;o).
I can’t imagine my community without a library. The city counsel tried to cut back hours once (they tried to close the main library on Sunday). The outcry was huge! Four weeks later, the library’s regular hours were restored. Whew!