The following is an article written by Therese Horstketter, the Adult Services Associate at the Manitowoc Public Library.
Are you ready to rumble?!? Oh, sorry. I meant to say, are you ready to buy books?!? It just came out wrong. Anyway . . .
Remember the joy and anticipation of visiting our huge Friends of Manitowoc Public Library Used Book Sales in January and July? I’m right there with you! I love those sales. We put a lot of work into them and they’re loved by all those that shop at them! No matter how you look at it, the prices are great and the selections are immense. Not to mention that MPL, via our Friends support group, benefits greatly from these sales. They’re all-around wonderful win-win events!
Therese Horstketter
We know people have really been missing them, so to help get books into your hands, we have previously offered a couple of sales via Curbside. And now our building is once again open to the public, you can come in to see what is available to purchase for yourself. If you’ve ventured into MPL proper, did you notice that we’ve updated our book sale shelves? Everything on the shelves has been “new” since early March!
Our next sale up is another favorite! We’ll be setting up a “Coffee Table” style book sale that starts on Thursday, April 15. Music, art, sports, collectibles of many types, historical and geographical information, comics and graphics, Do-It-Yourself crafts and homeowner ideas, field guides, and memoirs are just some of the topics available. Most items are in the adult reading range, but there are a few children’s gems also.
We’re guessing that some of these areas of interest may strike your fancy! Or they may be of interest to a friend or relative that collects memorabilia. Or anyone that just loves great, interesting books. I always come across unique items that I may not have had on my shopping list, but they catch my eye and call out to me to buy them.
Just a few titles to spark your interest:
- “Lighthouses of the World”
- ”Green Bay Packers: Green, Gold and Glory”
- ”Olympian Luxury Cars”
- A Pez Guidebook
- “100 Years of American Billboard”
You can never have enough amazing, interesting books! A Quick Note: Since this sale features larger-in-size materials, it generally gets refilled during the sale. Be sure to check back, and if you can, make sure to do that more than once!
Items in the Coffee Table Book Sale are priced higher than our usual sale books due to the fact that their original purchase price was higher than the average book. They’re often unique items and they’re still a great deal at the prices we charge. The books start at $4 (two for $7), but quite a few are individually priced higher.
As always, your purchase of these materials goes to support Manitowoc Public Library. If I may wax British for a moment—how much more chuffed can you feel about a sale? You get a great book for a great price AND your money goes to support our amazing programs and other features of our Library. Our ongoing health crisis may have put a damper on in-person programming, but we are all looking forward to bringing everything back up to speed just as soon as we can.
And until we can be together in person for events, we are offering many other options, such as Curbside Pickup, Virtual Programming, and our usual online databases for your use. We will continue to have more pop-up book sales and other material sales as well, since at this point we cannot say with certainty what will be happening with our July book sale.
Look to Facebook for a reminder regarding the Coffee Table Book Sale’s starting date. I hope you have a good list of all the people for whom you would like to buy, including yourself! And keep an open mind seeing as you never know what you’ll come across! Be ready to BROWSE and BUY and browse and buy and . . . you get the picture!
Let’s all hope that our global situation improves and before you know it, we’ll be waiting to enter the huge Balkansky Room Book Sale once again and exiting with armloads!!
Until that time though, these smaller sales are a pretty satisfying alternative all things considered!
