Friends of the Library Book Sale

Yesterday I went with Melissa to the semiannual Alachua County Friends of the Library book sale, held each April and October at its warehouse on North Main Street. This sale is a major event in Gainesville, to the point where it is a featured front page story in my local newspaper and police officers are stationed in strategic points around the site to redirect traffic and allow customers to cross Main Street.

Saturday and Sunday were the opening days, and naturally the busiest. It was very crowded in the place, which had the smell of a old, dusty library. Old books: yuck! Still, as I looked around at some of the people there, I noticed a few with an almost manic look about them, as if they were beside themselves with excitement at the prospect of buying boxloads of ultra-cheap books. And cheap they mostly were, with sticker prices ranging from 25 cents to a dollar per book (there were some sections where the books were higher-priced). They also sold old CDs, cassettes, records, VHS videos, DVDs, and jigsaw puzzles. For my part, I picked up a 1992 Manhattan guidebook that showed the buildings on its maps for 25 cents. And I bought some old VHS movie favorites (The Maltese Falcon, Doctor No, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) for a buck apiece. Although I had been to the Friends of the Library sale a number of times in the past, this was the first time that Melissa had ever been there. She enjoyed the experience and purchased a few items as well.

One significant thing that I noticed from this experience in a very crowded, noisy, and jostling public place was that, unlike in previous years, I was not bothered by the crowds and noise. This is something that I began to notice in myself during my recent New York trip and will be the topic of a forthcoming article.