Highland County Public Library Used Book Sale

Nick Mullins:
As temperatures drop and the Allegheny Highlands become decorated in their fall splendor, visitors from far and wide venture to Highland County. Many folks throughout the community have busied themselves in preparation for the Hands and Harvest Festival held each year to celebrate the changing of the season, including many of the staff, volunteers, and board members who support the Highland County Public Library. Over the past several weeks they’ve been working hard to prepare for their annual used book sale that offers patrons thousands of used books along with DVDs, music CDs, puzzles, audio books, and games. While the sale is a wonderful opportunity to stock up on winter book supplies, it is also an excellent way to support an important local institution as Executive director Tomi Herold explains.

Tomi Herold:
So it’s the one event that we put on annually that people can count on to stock up their own bookshelves, to share the books that they’ve donated with other members of the community. We are in fact a non-profit, so some of our operating budget needs to be filled in with money raised locally. The money allows us to provide better services and programs, and it also is an opportunity to put back books into the community.

Nick Mullins:
Throughout the year, the library receives book donations that require a lot of sorting and storage. Winnie Richardson who sits on the board of directors has become an expert in the controlled chaos that’s often required to bring the sale to fruition.

Winnie Richardson:
As the books come in, a bunch of us get together and we go through and sort, we unpack the boxes and put them in areas. We get a lot of donations, some of the stuff does come from taking out old books that haven’t been checked out for a long time in the library, and so we have room to put new ones in. But we get thousands and thousands and thousands of donations, and every year it’s different. And it’s pretty amazing how different it can be from year to year.

We’ve had two maybe more people give us sizable collections of Danielle Steel books. And we also have this really cool collection of older paperbacks that are old sci-fi ones. I mean from the 50s and 60s. And they’re really cool looking and we’re hoping to put those in one section. Plus we have a lot of Westerns. I mean a lot of Westerns.

Nick Mullins:
And what isn’t sold goes on to help others.

Winnie Richardson:
Every year we do at least one, maybe two shipments of books off to better world books. So they move them around the world. They sell them. They raise money with them. They do different things. Books are very important no matter what it is, no matter what you’re wanting to research. It’s a fun sale. It’s an interesting time, people come in from all over, interesting backgrounds and different things. And there’s always something interesting and memorable no matter what you do.

Tomi Herold:
We have a lot of fun putting it on. And I hope that people who come and shop have a lot of fun looking at what we’ve put together.

Nick Mullins:
For more information visit their website at highlandlibrary.homestead.com, check out their Facebook page, or call (540) 468-2085