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09/18/2018 12:00 AMFor book lovers, the most wonderful time of the year is just around the corner. The annual Friends of the Guilford Free Library (FGFL) Book Sale returns to town Friday through Sunday, Sept. 28 to 30, and promises thousands of books from all genres, entertainment goods, and bake sale items.
Thousands of books, ranging from art and autobiographies to fiction and film, will be up for sale this year. Books will be displayed across the library, with tents for fiction and entertainment in front, children’s books in the Book House and courtyard off the parking lot, and non-fiction as well as other genres spread across the library.
Layout of the sale is important because FGFL received a record number of donated books this year—right around 40,000. Library Director Rob McCoole said the library just seems to get more and more books each year and he knows that is thanks in large part to the demographics and generosity of the community.
“It’s amazing it never seems to be exhausted,” he said. “Every time you think, ‘Oh well, Guilford has to be out of books by now,’ more just keep coming…We will occasionally just get an academic’s entire collection of books, so sometimes we will just have something like an amazing collection of French literature all in one batch.”
To get through all of the donations, every Thursday, all year long, the friends gather to sort through the numerous books donated each year to categorize them, price them, and prep them for sale. However in addition to prepping the books for the three-day sale, FGFL also sells books online. FGFL Vice-President Marilyn Kramer said managing the online sales is a full-time job at this point.
“The online people will come during the week and scan and then list books online and we have someone who comes in every day who ships because we have a 24-hour period of time to turn around a book if it is sold,” she said. “That happens pretty much five- to six days a week.”
The online sales have been going on for about three years and McCoole said the sales took off, “beyond our wildest and best expectations.” The online sales along comfortably bring in more than $20,000 a year.
FGFL volunteers “are just scanning and looking for the cream of the crop to see if anything is going to have a sellable valuable beyond just the few dollars we have at the book sale,” he said. “Quite a bit of it does, so we always have a couple hundred items in stock that are being listed online.”
Beyond the online sales, last year the book sale made $56,000—a record for FGFL. While the number is impressive in its own right, McCoole said its important for people to understand what that money means to the library.
“After the Great Recession, our budget got cut by over $20,000 for specifically the book line and we have never really noticed that only because of the friends,” he said. “Now we actually have a greater book budget to work with than we have ever had and it is all thanks to the friends.”
In addition, McCoole said the town pays for the infrastructure of the library, but donations like the proceeds of the book sale have allowed the library to invest in technology and bring in programing like coding classes, concerts, and big-name authors.
“We would like people to know when they come in and buy a book for $2 or $3, it really adds up and it allows Rob [McCoole] to do all of these great things for the library that we all feel very passionate about,” said FGFL member Cathy Peterson.
What’s for Sale?
Most books go from anywhere between $1 to $4 and the last day of the sale brings a half-off discount. In the last half-hour of the final day of the sale, teachers and other non-profit groups are also welcome to come and pick up books at no cost.
FGFL President Shelley Brewer said each year the book sale has unique attractions based on the donations. This year she said sale has a fascinating selection of ephemera, including magazines, maps and nautical charts, comic books, sheet music, and interesting Guilford pieces. In addition, she said there are a significant number of large print books as well as large collections of adult foreign language fiction.
The books are always a big draw, but another high point of the event is the bake sale. Held on Saturday, Sept. 29, FGFLs call on its nearly 700 members to donate baked goods, which sell at a rapid pace.
In addition, the friends group is looking for volunteers who might be willing to help with clean up and take down on Sunday, Sept. 30 once the sale is over. Books that are not sold are either set aside for the library’s next sales or donated to organizations like New Haven Reads; any books that are in poor condition and cannot be donated are then recycled.
The annual Friends of the Guilford Free Library Book Sale will be held Friday, Sept. 28 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 29 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 30 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. To learn more about the sale or to volunteer for the event or with the Friends of the Guilford Free Library, visit www.guilfordfreelibrary.org or call the library at 203-453-8282.