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Book sale has calming effect

Stay calm and buy books. Pelham Public Library is cashing in on the “Stay Calm” craze to promote its weeklong March used book sale.
booksale

Stay calm and buy books.

Pelham Public Library is cashing in on the “Stay Calm” craze to promote its weeklong March used book sale.

“Stay calm and read,” “stay calm with a book” and similar slogans hang on the around-the-room display panel in the library’s Festival Room.

The semi-annual used books sale begins Monday, March 2, and continues to Saturday, March 7, during regular library hours. A highlight is the Saturday $2- a-grocery- bag clearance.

The March sale, as well as the August sale, typically raises more than $3,000 each to buy materials or finance new library programs.

“We haven’t decided where it will go this time,” said community services co-ordinator Melanie Taylor-Ridgway.

The used books are from donations as well as from  culling of the library’s collection.

It can vary from sale to sale depending on what comes in, said volunteer sale coordinator Maria Bouchard.

“We just received 17 bags 20 minutes ago,” she said in an interview. “We have a large number of religion-related books, which may have come from a former minister’s collection. We are always surprised by the quality of the books we receive.”

Cooking, gardening and children’s books are donated regularly as are games, DVDs,  and CDs.

Bouchard and library staff go through the donations. They look for books to go into the library’s collection or to be given special treatment.

Some 100-year-old books, for example, were recently posted on Kijiji to alert collectors as well as put into the sale’s “specials” section.

“We always have a good mix of fiction along with non-fiction,” said Bouchard.

It takes more than 40 volunteers working in sales, sorting, setting up and taking down to put on the book sale.

After the sale, books not sold go to other charities having book sales, as well as to Better World Books. It sells books online to assist libraries, schools and literacy programs.

“It is hard not to walk away with a book when you come here,” said Taylor-Ridgway about the calming effect of a visit to the sale.