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News & ArtsFriday, September 25, 2009
Books What Are You Doing This Weekend?
Posted by Paul Constant on Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 2:54 PM
Although I must admit I don't go as often as I used to—I get most of my books for free in the mail these days—the Friends of the Library sale is an astounding thing. You could conceivably spend twelve bucks and not need another book until Christmas. You could spend thirty bucks and not need another book until the Spring Book Sale. You'll have to do some digging—in a hangar full of books, there's going to be a lot of crap—but you are guaranteed to find something magnificent if you spend a little time at it.
3
this is fun. Make sure you bring your own (large) bag or backpack for hauling your treasure. They have vinyl records as well. And more Tom Wolfe books than you'll ever see in one place. I think Sunday is half-price? So that $.50 gets knocked down to $.25...
4
rather weak selection of CDs/DVD but worth a look. also in the middle is their fancy/spendy book section where you're looking at a few bucks for newer more mainstream stuff.
6
The last time I went there I came out with a giant stack of pristine opera sets on LP, three and four discs each, with booklets -- Price, Sutherland, Callas, Tebaldi, Scotto, De Los Angeles, a dollar a set. I could have bought twice as many if I could have carried them. Mrs. Fnarf was not happy.
7
The really magnificent stuff is found/taken by scouts on Friday night, when they will grab boxes and boxes of books and then scan them all to see which ones are worth buying. People who go on Saturday (or Sunday) sometimes don't realize the cool stuff that can be found if you go on Friday.
Yes, they have guidelines, but I don't know if they're always enforced. Specifically, the guidelines say:
"In fairness to others, do not remove quantities of books from the tables to decide later which to purchase. Please select and examine books on an individual basis. Hand-held devices to check books may only be used at the tables. Do not stack up books to check later."
At least they charge more nowadays for memberships bought at the door. That's an improvement.
Yes, they have guidelines, but I don't know if they're always enforced. Specifically, the guidelines say:
"In fairness to others, do not remove quantities of books from the tables to decide later which to purchase. Please select and examine books on an individual basis. Hand-held devices to check books may only be used at the tables. Do not stack up books to check later."
At least they charge more nowadays for memberships bought at the door. That's an improvement.
9
so why don't the people that run this fundraiser do their own scanning and organize and price accordingly?!
11
@9: they definately do turn some rarer stuff into auctions. And they used to have a "better books" section (does this still exist?).
12
@9: You're retarded. This is a fundraiser/surplus sale for the Friends of the Library, not Antiques Roadshow.
13
#11: yes, better books, pretty much directly in the middle of the enormo-building. Then, in the past, there has been rooms of art, music, etc.
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