Typically the basement isn’t the highlight of a library. However, the crowded basement of May Memorial Library in downtown Burlington has been crawling with avid readers, resellers and Burlington residents on a mission to take full advantage of the Friends of the Alamance County Public Libraries’ fall book sale.
Christine Fisher, a Wilmington resident, has been coming to the book sale since 2016 and said she enjoys looking for authors she likes. This time, she was looking for mysteries, romance novels and poetry. She said the sale is great because you run into many people you know. She said she also enjoys the atmosphere of it.
“This thing is like a hunt,” Fisher said. “It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I going to find this time?’ So, it’s fun, and you see people walking out with bulging bags of books.”
The book sale is put on by the Friends of the Alamance County Public Libraries, a nonprofit dedicated to advocating for local libraries. It hosts a book sale every fall and spring — thanks to the donations from the community. To donate, community members drop off books at any of the four Alamance County libraries. In between their fall and spring sales, volunteers are constantly coming in to sort and shelve the books.
The proceeds of the sale go to support all four public libraries in Alamance County and help fund certain programs at those libraries, such as a children’s program that involves a sleepover at one of the libraries.
Volunteer Barbara Roberts has been working with the organization for 40 years and said they have about 50,000 books from donations. The sale also includes CDs and DVDs.
Roberts said the book sale has grown so much over time. It started with a group of unorganized boxes on the sidewalk of K-Mart, moved to the Holly Hill Mall and the Burlington Manufacturers Outlet Center and now has a permanent space at May Memorial Library that allows for in-depth organization of the books.
Roberts said the space at the library allows for the volunteers to easily sort the books.
“That allows us to organize the books really well, so when shoppers come in, they’ve got the different categories like history or religion,” Roberts said. “The books are well-organized and shoppers can find what they’re looking for. I think that contributes greatly to the success of the sale.”
In the basement, books are separated into many different categories, such as history, religion, poetry or children’s books. There is a wide variety of categories, including sports, cookbooks, new edition books, book clubs’ recommendations and southern literature, according to Roberts.
Roberts said her favorite part of the sale is the bustling activity of opening day — which was Sept. 5 this year. She said opening day is typically filled with avid readers from the local community, as well as resellers and dealers from out of town who come for specific items.
“Our community comes in and shops. We have dealers that come from out of town, but the heart of business is the shoppers in Alamance County,” Roberts said.
Walt Brown, a former board member of the organization, said he enjoys coming every year and seeing how the book sale brings the community together.
“It gives everybody a focal point,” Brown said. “They sell all kinds of books, I like the variety and that’s why I come.”
Roberts said the heavy demand and turnout at the sale shows the power of books in today’s technology-driven world. Roberts said that although people like herself love to read online through devices such as Kindles, there is something special about a physical book.
“You will talk to people and they will say, ‘I really like holding a book,’” Roberts said. “Particularly in the nonfiction area, people like having a volume to read rather than just getting a snippet off of Wikipedia, it’s just a whole different research tool to have the reference books. We have some books on technology, of course, but I think our shoppers are mostly here for the actual books.”
Roberts encouraged Elon students to attend the book sale, which runs until Sept. 14. In particular, she said education majors at Elon should check out the sale’s children’s book collection, which has an entire room to itself.
Books can be purchased with cash or checks. Hardback books are $3, paperbacks are $2 and children’s books are $1. To see the book sale’s hours, visit the Friends of the Alamance County Public Libraries’ website.