In their 71st year running, Alachua County’s Friends of the Library is holding its annual spring book sale from April 26-30 at the nonprofit’s 430 N. Main St. warehouse in Gainesville.
With around 500,000 items for sale that include books, comics, pieces of art, CDs, DVDs, vinyl records and collector’s corner valuables, the event will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. starting Saturday, April 26, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday.
Friends of the Library volunteer Sue Morris said she and her husband have been lugging around books collected from the sale for 60 years and she only plans to get more.
“It just amazes me that all this stuff comes in new every time,” said Morris, who’s been volunteering for decades. “There’s always a new round.”
Morris said customers can expect this sale to be no different than any year, with the quality and quantity of products. While prices for some books will be slightly higher than the usual 25 cents to the $1 range, Tuesday will still be the traditional half-price day and Wednesday all items will be 10 cents.
“We have a lot of things that are a little more than the $1,” Morris said. “Times have changed, things are always more expensive and when something sells on the internet for $30, we would turn around and probably charge $10 for it.”
Between each fall and spring sale, volunteers from across the country work to help price and organize books before the sale, operate the sales checkout and restock shelves and piece together each puzzle to make sure all pieces are accounted for.
Each bookshelf is organized by a volunteer who’s passionate about each topic, including hobbies, religion, medicine, humor, diet and nutrition, air enthusiasts, sailing ships and kitchens.
Morris said a lot of the things they receive are donated after being passed down through families, and they’ve recently been receiving textbooks still wrapped in plastic. One year, she said she bought a book that was signed by the author.
“I looked it up and it’s not a first edition or anything, but it was still signed by him,” she said.
This spring, the collector’s corner will include a 2010 reproduction of the 1901 fairytale series by Andrew Lang, a 1942 “What to Do in an Air Raid” pamphlet, “Picture Stories from the Bible” written in 1943 and a 1921 Boy Scout handbook.
The music collection features a Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well 50th Anniversary box set of CDs, as well as knick-knacks, like salt and pepper shakers, Mayan sculptures and metal puppets.
Customers are encouraged to bring their own bags and boxes to transport their books home and the sale will accept cash, checks, credit cards, Google or Apple Pay.
Check the Friends of the Library Facebook or website for more information leading up to the sale.