SARATOGA SPRINGS >> No one is happier than an avid reader in a room full of books for sale, and when the proceeds benefit the Saratoga Springs Public Library, everyone wins.
Third-grader Alydia LaManque of Providence darted from bin to bin at the Sept. 2 Friends Book Shop sale, with the 10-cent paperbacks spread out over rows of tables in the library’s community room. She had chosen 10 books already, most of them about cats.
“I have ‘Pioneer Cat’ and ‘Cats at the Campground,'” she said, laying out her purchases on the children’s book table. “And I have a Wonder Woman comic. I really like comic books.”
Her mother, April, who home-schools Alydia, said comic books were a new interest. Animals, including cats, were a longstanding love.
While her daughter hunted cat books, April looked for resources for the school year, which includes American history and Native American studies.
“I’ve found these: ‘Encouraging Children to Learn,’ ‘Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln’ and ‘The Heart of a Chief,'” April said, shuffling her own pile of books. “And I have a novel about a girl raised by dolphins for Alydia: ‘The Music of Dolphins.'”
While the LaManques browsed the children’s books, Jeff Budge, manager of the Friends Book Shop, walked from table to table, straightening the red plastic bins full of paperbacks and the occasional hardcover. The books were arranged by sections such as classics, nonfiction, foreign languages and pets.
The Friends of the Library hold these sales five times annually, with the revenues going to the library’s wish list. Items such as computers for the children’s room have been funded by the Friends.
“We receive 9,000 books and media items such as compact discs in monthly donations,” Budge said. “We put some of the paperbacks and duplicate copies on our top shelves at the Book Shop. When the top is full, we have a sale.”
The Friends make about $275 per 10-cent sale, he said. That’s 2,750 books rehomed.
The unsold books are donated through the Friends’ community outreach program, going to hospitals and nursing homes. And the very bottom-of-the-bin books are given to local farmers, who use them for compost on chicken farms and worm farms. That might sound horrible to a book-lover, but at least the inventory isn’t thrown away. And note that some of the compost was likely former Harlequin Romances.
Even when volunteering at the sale, Budge had an eye out for books he’d like.
“I like metaphysical books,” he said. “And James Bond paperbacks. I’m trying to collect the whole series.”
Budge’s co-volunteer Konstantin Vulakh of Galway was off-duty at present, just rummaging through the tables. Vulakh said having a look at so many books is the best part of being a Friend of the Library. He was seeking good children’s paperbacks for his nine-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. Among his selections were “The Fledgling” and “The Hundred Dresses.”
“I like nonfiction myself, like ‘Into Thin Air’ and ‘Breaking Point,'” he said. “I don’t have much time to read these days, what with the kids. I plan to read much more when I retire.”
Down by foreign languages and travel hovered the retired Ellen Mattesen of Saratoga Springs, a former physical science teacher at Shenendehowa. Her favorite reading is historical novels, she said.
“That way, I can learn about history without having to read a history book,” she said. “And the money I spend at the sales goes back to the library.”
Mattesen has been reading and collecting books all her life. She has nine rooms in her house full of them now, no surprise since she bought 37 books at the past 10-cent sale.
“I can’t get rid of my books!” she said. “They’re like friends.”