Book lovers get ready for the spring sale where hundreds of books can be bought by donation during the Friends of the Library fundraising event held April 15 to 17.
The Keith Gordon Room at the Bob Harkins branch of the Prince George Library will see about 15 tables of books divided into categories including fiction, non-fiction and children's books.
With just those three categories for hundreds of books, the event will be guaranteed to be a real page turner as about 500 readers make discoveries of hidden treasures while browsing for their favourites.
Friends of the Library accepts donations of gently-used DVDs, CDs and books from the public as well as cast-offs from the library itself. There are usually two volunteers that will sort the books into boxes as they come into the storage unit in the basement of the library, ready to be put on display during the spring and fall book sales, said Margaret Johnston, president of the Friends of the Library, who has been a board member for about 20 years and president for the last five. There are 10 people on the board of the Friends of the Library that started in 1989.
"On Thursday we'll load all the books up and bring them into the Keith Gordon Room," said Johnston. The youth advisory board has volunteered to do the grunt work involved with bringing about 100 boxes filled with books up to the Keith Gordon room for every recent book sale and then other volunteers place the books into the three categories, added Johnston.
The purchasing process has been simplified from counting hard covers and soft covers and doing all the math to making one donation for all the books a person would like, which has streamlined the process. It has also benefited the library because the end result has been more money raised. Each book sale in the recent past has raised between $3,500 and $4,000 to go towards the Prince George Public Library's wish-list items, said Johnston.
Funds raised have gone toward the Prince George Citizen's archive digitization project, the summer reading program for children, Raise A Reader geared for programs to promote literacy within the Prince George community, and the Knowledge Garden.
"We help with things that are not part of the library's regular operating budget," said Johnston. "We contribute to the little extras they like to do and we promised to contribute $10,000 to the Knowledge Garden and we just finished that up this year."
Book donations can be made at the library.
After the event, unsold books go to Better World Books in the U.S. that pay for the shipping to their location and then the items are sold online. The library then gets a percentage of the sale price, added Johnston.
The book sale starts Friday, April 15 from 3 to 5 p.m. for Friends of the Library members to get the best selection. Annual memberships are $5 each and can be purchased at the door of the sale on Friday so everyone is welcome. Saturday, April 16 the sale goes from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday, April 17 from 1 to 4 p.m.
