Friends of the Library Fall Book Sale Achieves New All-time Sales High
November 1, 2012 —
Go ahead and add “legendary” to the phrase “Friends of the Library Book Sales.”
The Friends had yet another record-breaking event during its Oct. 23-28 Fall Book Sale at Remington’s, with $125,779.01 in sales. After the 2012 Spring Book Sale’s sales record of $121,522.85, we thought the Friends might be finished setting records for a while, but that all-volunteer army – and thousands of shoppers from across the Ozarks – did it again.
Among the shoppers were Republic Schools elementary librarians Amy Summers, Scarlet Braddock and Jennifer Burton, who with Interim Superintendent Vicki Neal bought books for the library of a new Republic K-5 elementary school opening in 2013. They’ll need about 10,000 books to complete the library and most of them will be purchased new, but the librarians scoured the Friends sale to save some money.
Their haul included about 500 books at a cost of $955, Neal said. The librarians estimated that the books would have cost about $8,000 purchased new.
“That puts a little dent in it, but it will be a good start for the school district, and it helps the (public) library,” Neal said. “We feel fortunate we got in on it,” she added, saying they’ll be back for the Friends Spring Book Sale April 22-28, 2013.
School officials from the Hollister School District also swept up some bargains for their library, as did a Logan-Rogersville Elementary School fifth-grade teacher, who talked it up so much, he got his students excited about going, too.
Those are the kind of stories that should gratify all the people who have donated books through the year for the Friends sale. Your donations put books in the hands of young readers, help schools and others save money, and proceeds from the sale help fund the kinds of programs and concerts you love at your Springfield-Greene County Libraries.
One of those concerts is at 2 p.m. today at the Library Center: The acoustic rock/folk group Techs and the Roadies. All ages are welcome.
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Need pointers for holiday decorating? The Between Friends Gifts Shops will show you how to deck the halls at two programs: 7 p.m. Monday in the Library Center auditorium, and at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Brentwood Branch Library.