Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Books Beget Books

The Friends of the Library's booksale area, previously tucked into one tiny corner near the Adult Circulation Desk, was expanded greatly in late January. Like-new hardcovers and paperbacks are now selling briskly in their new spot near the public Internet computers for $1 to $3 apiece.
What's been especially interesting about alloting a bigger selling area for donated books is the correspondingly large increase in book donations from the public! Not only are the Friends selling more, they're getting a much larger supply of stock to display. Books for sale, it seems, beget more books for sale! We're very grateful for the public's donation of their unwanted books, videos, DVDs, tapes, etc. and we wanted you to know that the Friends' profits from the sale are being directed into new carpeting for the library! Along with a most generous gift of $10,000 from Dover resident E.J. Bleiler, the Friends have committed $5,000 (mostly from the sale of books) to this project as well.

Back on December 5, 2006, I blogged about a company called GotBooks who was making money by offering free pick-up of your unwanted books. I cautioned against it and urged you to donate your items to the library instead. On May 17, Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam wrote about GotBooks as well, clearly identifying the company as a profit-maker not a charity.

Thank you all for your continued donations and your purchases. I guess it really is true that one man's junk is another's treasure! Stealing from the "swords into ploughshares" analogy, let's keep turning "Books into Broadloom"!

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