One Heck Of A Good Library Sale
- By Karen Wright
Long time library friend John Burt (right) and volunteers.
By Karen Wright
I probably shouldn't tell you about this; there were too many people there as it was, but here goes, anyway. We were getting itchy feet last month and decided we needed a couple of days to go for a drive. I hadn't bought any new books for weeks and I jumped on the net to see what kinds of book sales I could find in the San Francisco Bay area. After all, buying books is a great (and tax deductible) excuse to spend a couple of days away from home. You can't say we book dealers don't know how to have fun!
So, I got to the Palo Alto Friends of the Library website and they had pictures of a lot of the very special books that they offer. Palo Alto, for you easterners, is where Stanford University is located, so the town has big bucks, an extremely literate community, and lots and lots of book readers who donate very freely to their Friends Store. Oh boy!
Lo and behold, as I perused the online selection of collectibles, I found a copy of a book I have been looking for the last ten years or so. It is called; "The Manly Art of Knitting" by Dave Fougner. The book is an actual manual on how to knit things like dog beds and horse blankets, not to mention rope hammocks. "Only a man would knit a hammock with shovel handles for needles and manila rope for yarn," says the blurb on the back; and the cover is priceless. The book is just a pamphlet, 64 pages, and very scarce, so now I'm caught in the age-old bookseller's trap; keep it 'cause I love it and it belongs with my Western Collection which includes Tom Mix's book about his horse, Tony, and my collection of Francis the Talking Mule books, or be a good bookseller and sell it. Meanwhile, our real, live Western Cowboy friend is going to get a framed scan of the cowboy-on-horseback-with-knitting-needles cover for his new apartment.
Well, on the strength of that one book, plus several others we found that looked HOT, I got very excited and my husband and I jumped in the ever-faithful Subaru and trotted off to Palo Alto. It is about six hours from our house (including lunch, of course) and upon arrival, we grabbed a room at good old Motel 6, ate dinner at Cibo's, which was good but not exceptional, and ended the evening at Trader Vic's for a glass of wine on their outside deck - it was a beautiful warm night.
|
One Heck Of A Good Library Sale
- By Karen Wright
Tent sale in Palo Alto.
The next morning, at the crack of 8:30 a.m. we rolled on over to the nearby Cubberly Community Center, a huge former school that has been turned into a community center where each classroom houses a different art or craft or book organization; we parked in front of the dance school where all the cute little kids were prancing around in their tutus. They actually have a fair amount of parking and in the shade, too.
Palo Alto Friends eases you into the sale by having it in three increments. First, you get a number for the "good books" from a delightful volunteer named Cathy Bradford. She has a sunny smile, a cheerful attitude, an eclectic way of dressing, and has been with FOPAL for just over two years. She is the "section head" for four small sections; Curious Books, Signed Books, Antique and Collectible Books, and Greeting Cards. The purpose of the numbers is that when the time comes at 11 a.m. for the Main Room to open, you haven't had to stand in line for two or three hours getting cranky as hell, as you might with most of the library sales we've been to.
Then at 9 a.m. they whet your appetite by having an outside tent book sale with all books priced at $1.00, and some very nice books, ephemera, prints, and assorted odds and ends there are, too! At 10 a.m. they send you a half block down the nearby driveway to another classroom full of the next best books at $1 each – shelves and shelves of them on every possible subject.
About 10:45 you stagger back, laden with bags and boxes of books, towards the main room and get in line according to number. At 11:00 sharp, the first 150 people, who by now are revved and ready to bolt, get in (we were 146 and 147) and have an hour to shop, with a limit of twelve books each, before they can buy unfettered by time constraints from noon on. We chose our twenty-four books carefully, paid for them, and then rushed back to begin a more minute perusal in the sections. Everything is very nicely arranged, they have maps to each section, and the volunteers are very knowledgeable, good natured, and helpful.
At high noon, they open the "glass cases" of collectibles and high end books. One must sign up for this, and I was very lucky in that I had put my name on the top of the list when we first came in the door, so I got to snoop first. Of course, I had already looked in the case for the "Manly Art of Knitting," and woe is me, it was not there. I asked Jerry, the store manager, if that book had been purchased. He said he would check and the darling man went into the back and found the book which had accidentally been put online with Amazon. He deleted it from their Amazon books and gave it to me at a discounted price since I was a member of FOPAL and they didn't have to pay Amazon's exorbitant commission. They really were very, very nice people. It has been my experience with Friends organizations that many of the volunteers will not make any type of deviation from their very strict rules, but I think Jerry took pity on us because we had come all the way from Virginia City for that particular book.
|
One Heck Of A Good Library Sale
- By Karen Wright
Volunteer Cathy Bradford.
We amassed about five Trader Joe's bags and two boxes over the next couple of hours. I got a couple of costume books, some good botany, architectural stuff, an old but good Joy of Cooking, quite a few Native American Indian and Western History books (our current specialty), and quite an eclectic mish-mash of other yummy stuff.
When we were sated (and out of money), I went to the back room to talk with John Burt, a ten-year veteran of the Friends organization. He said they had their first sales beginning in the 1970s in a single room at the main library. In the mid-1980s they moved to an old high school where they had seven rooms, and have been having sales every month since that time. When they moved to the Community Center they spread out to several large classrooms. Their sales went from about $8000 per month in the 1990s and now exceed $200,000 a year. They do have some books set aside to be sold through Amazon-online.
They have about 150 volunteers and John told me that they are presently revising their volunteer handbook. Volunteers are permitted to buy books between and during the sale for the price on the book, but they are restricted in how many books they may purchase in a section, they can't buy any books they have priced themselves, and many of the books must be offered for sale once to the public before the volunteers may purchase them, at the manager's discretion. They do not encourage professional booksellers to become volunteers - for obvious reasons. Too bad!
According to their FOPAL History Sheet, "The Friend's book sales receipts over the last twenty years have funded over a million dollars worth of gifts and grants to Palo Alto’s Libraries." It helps that they have one of the best universities in the west nearby and have all those studious students and profound professors from whom to glean donations.
As with most Friends organizations, the sales provide stock for booksellers from all over the area, they provide good books with good homes, and they thrill readers of all kinds with "the cultural and educational benefits of reading."
I asked John if the Main Library goes through all the donations before they go to the FOPAL sales. He said that the donations are not vetted by the library as they have so many that it would take forever. If they find a book they think the library might want or if a library staff person finds one they do want, then the book is immediately given to the library.
|
One Heck Of A Good Library Sale
- By Karen Wright
Checking out some of the books.
There were quite a few ex-library books, of course. And, of course, they were some of the great ones, but they are just as laden with stickers and pockets as all ex-libs. All-in-all, the general quality was fabulous. We left about 2 p.m. and raced home with our cache. I hate to say it, but the trip was so fast that we really didn't experience any great food and we didn't get to explore Palo Alto and surrounds. We will next time.
"A good library book sale is a joy forever"...who said that? I guess I did. We love library book sales, but like everything else in our over-populated world with amateur book dealers who have little electronic thingamajigs to price out the books, they are getting more and more crowded, and the quality is slipping a bit. But that's life on the bookseller trail. Of them all, so far we like Palo Alto best for price, quality, and the people who volunteer. Next month stay tuned for the Sacramento Book Fair.
|