By Dylan Sciacca | Reporter
What began as a book sale has grown to be a large community effort supported by donations and volunteers year-round. Books find new homes with readers as the sale continues to support the local library and encourage people to keep reading.
The Friends of the Waco-McLennan County Library Book Sale runs 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday at BASE Extraco Events Center, where thousands of used books are sold for cheap. The event gives community members a chance to discover new reading material and support the local library at the same time.
Amy Swanson, Friends of the Waco-McLennan County Library Board president, said there are plenty of books for all types of book enthusiasts.
“We had, I think, almost 75 pallets this year … we do not know the exact number of books, but there are between 80,000 and 100,000,” Swanson said. “That number also includes DVDs, puzzles and CDs, so not just the books but other media as well.”
Since its start in 1962, the book sale has grown more and more each year. But getting all these books and media out is not easy. Donations, volunteer work and customers are what keep the sale successful.
“They are donated to the West Waco Library throughout the year, and all of the donations go to our sort room,” Swanson said. “There we have wonderful volunteers throughout the year who go through those and sort them. We then get them onto pallets to come to the book sale.”
These books are not just thrown out to sort through; they are organized into sections and ordered by the authors’ last names. This can make it easy to find certain books made by an author.
They are also organized into types of books and media too. Popular genres have the biggest sections and have many readers stopping to take a look.
“We do really well with the adult paperbacks,” Swanson said. “The cozy novels, the romances and things like that. The children’s books also go really quickly too. All these are things that people really, really love.”
Customers are encouraged to buy many books and are given paper bags at the door instead of just one. Retired attorney Jaina Whitting had three bags with her and was still looking for more.
“I read a lot in my career, and it was always over some not-interesting material,” Whitting said. “I have always enjoyed reading, but it took away that spark. But now I read, and it has meaning behind it, and each story is unique and different … I have cheered, cried and even thrown books in anger. That’s how special they are and my favorite thing to do with my time.”
When Sunday night comes around, there are no more customers, and there are hardly any books left. Over 90% of all books and media listed were bought last year. This year, Swanson hopes for a similar result.
“I would say about 5,000-ish are left most of the time,” Swanson said. “So out of 100,000, that is not bad, and there are a lot of sales.”
