Twice per year, when the doors of the Northeast Regional Library open at 9 a.m. for the first day of the biannual Friends of the Library Booksale, hundreds of excited bookworms of all ages and reading preferences are waiting in the parking lot.
Tapes, movies and CDs are sold, too, but books are the main draw, with approximately 50,000 books at prices ranging from $1 to $3. Jenna Bartlett, who has attended the fall book sale with her mother every year since she was 5 years old, said she also looks forward to a sense of community created by seeing the same faces year after year.
“It really is this wonderful community, because you get all kinds of interesting people there and you learn what they’re looking for, who their favorite author is, how long they’ve been coming,” Bartlett said.
After years of volunteering at the book sale and joking about finding her soul mate amidst the library stacks, Bartlett met her fiancé Dominic Cusumano during the 2013 spring book sale.
“I had not dated much when I met my fiancé, and him just coming up to me, being so excited to be at the book sale and meet me, was really a dream come true,” Bartlett said.
Paige Owens, New Hanover County Public Library assistant director, said it takes more than 100 volunteers and 600 hours to organize the book sale each fall.
All library locations accept donations throughout the year. Books are transported to the Northeast Regional branch, where volunteers sort and store the books between sales.
“This is a business model anyone would die for. All of our material is donated and we get 100 percent of the proceeds,” Owens said.
Donated materials are vital to the success of the event, and Owens said she is always surprised at how many donations the library receives.
“We’re always amazed. We do this every six months. We don’t keep any leftovers, and then somehow, six months roll around and we’ve got another 40,000 or 50,000 books. It’s a cycle that just keeps on giving,” Owens said.
Patti Bonner, president of the Friends of the New Hanover County Public Library and book sale volunteer, said all proceeds are invested back into the libraries, citing self-checkout kiosks in library locations as one improvement funded by book sale profits.
“This money that is raised for the library goes directly into library services, which means more books, increased services and improved technology,” Bonner said.
The spring, fall and summer beach-reads book sales brought in more than $130,000 in 2013 alone, with more than $1 million invested in library programs and offerings since the first sale in the basement of the main branch in 1983.
Two weeks before each sale, volunteers spend a Saturday hauling thousands of boxes of books into the David M. Paynter Assembly Room and lobby during an event known as The Big Move.
Owens said contests kept the Sept. 13 Big Move fun, with about 20 volunteers tallying books moved per hour and trading modes of transportation to win the grand prize: free frozen yogurts.
All volunteers also receive a $5 coupon for the sale.
After The Big Move, volunteers set up books every day leading up to the sale. After the sale, Saturday, Oct. 4, a new round of volunteers will pack up all remaining books to be picked up by Better World Books, a company that sells or recycles leftovers.
Owens estimated between 300 and 400 boxes of books are left after each sale.
Friends of the Library members are invited to shop early Sept. 26 from 6 to 9 p.m. The book sale opens to the public at 9 a.m. Sept. 27 and continues through Oct. 1. Prices drop each day of the sale.
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