Annual book sale important event

WEEDING stock is an important function at the Feilding Public Library and as a result of some careful selections over the past year the library’s 11th annual five-day book sale is now scheduled for later this month.

More than 4000 books will become available to the public from 10am on Monday, March 22, with the sale running each day until Saturday, March 27.

Library Manager, Simon Johnson, said the book sale was an important event for the library and the decision to hold it on an annual basis since 2000 had proved successful.

“We have always weeded stock, but used to trickle it out, and the people were never really aware that it was there,” he said. “Gathering the books together once a year and making an event out of it has been much better.”

He said it was also a good way of raising extra dollars on top of the book budget to purchase new stock.
“Weeding books not only moves out stock that people are no longer interested in but tells us what people want and don’t want and what’s out of date. It means that in the future we can use the information learned from the weeding to buy better.”

Mr Johnson said the books offered this year catered for a wide range of tastes, including popular fiction and major non-fiction subjects such as sport, travel, cooking and gardening.

“Fiction continues to be very strong and there appears to be no let-up in people’s demand for it.”

He said a noticeable mini trend centred on mysteries, with many serious literary authors turning their hands to this genre knowing there was a strong market for this type of work.

The sale runs from Monday to Friday during the library’s normal operating hours of 10am to 5.30pm and up to 7.30pm on Wednesday. Any books left over by Saturday will be free.

Mr Johnson said a large number of people visited the library during sale week and he anticipated another eager “first in, first served” rush of buyers on the first morning.

Sale prices are 50c or $1 for children’s books, $1 for fiction, $2 for non-fiction and $5 for quality coffee table-sized publications.

Last year’s sale yielded nearly $5000.