book sale

The Friends book sale netted about $5100 for their efforts. A couple of observations came to me from what I saw there. Some things never change.  I saw many of the same folks in the 3 hours I was 'around' the sale. The Friends are getting old and we don't have new members that are willing to step up and do the heavy lifting. That is not good.

Traditional sized paperbacks are on their way out. Yes, we still had plenty of them to sell, but I swear they are the same books we've sold for the past 5 years. We had 20 boxes in storage of the trade sized books. This is a change and seems to indicate that those books are eventually going to dominate our donations.  I actually mentioned in an email to the president that she may want to encourage the current store managers that it is time to rethink the store layout. They devote one book shelf 'run' to the trade sized and the rest of the wall to the standard size. AND they have been begging for the smaller paperbacks in every email they send out.

Stop begging and rework the shelving to fit what you're being given in donations. Double the size of the space for the trade sized books.  This isn't hard, people.

I have yet to hear back from her. I may have overstepped my bounds, even though I wasn't as blunt as I was just now. Oh well.

As I did the original store layout 7 years ago, I guess I feel I have a pretty important opinion on the matter.

The Friends also did give a donation to the Town in order for the work to begin on the library expansion. The first part of the plan is to get a plan in place. So, 25K will be matched from Town funds and that whole process will begin.

Always interesting at the library!