Sept. 12 - Simsbury Public Library Sale

Today's book-sale run started at the Simsbury Public Library. Simsbury is about an hour's drive from my house, and I've never been to a sale there before, but this was billed as a BIG Sale at booksalefinder.com (75,000 books), so I decided I didn't want to miss it.

This was one of the rare library sales that wasn't actually at the library--it was held in the gym at Simsbury High School. In many ways, this is a plus. Parking was ample, even though some sports matches were also going on at the time. It also affords a lot of room, since the sale itself took over the entire gymnasium and the cashiers were set up in the foyer. This sale had more cashiers than I have EVER seen at a library sale, and they seemed necessary. The sale started at 9 a.m., I got there at 10:30, and when I walked in, the line of people waiting to check out wound through the entire hall, through the gym door and most of the way across the gym. From the number of folks I saw leaving with two or three full bags each, I'd guess that this sale actually did live up to its billing as a BIG sale.

Plenty left for me, though. MAJOR props to the sorting and labeling at this sale--it's not often that the books are actually alphabetized by author as well as divided by genre (well, the trade paperbacks were, at least). The genre signage was clear and easily visible--nice to have the signs on sticks rather than taped to the front of the tables where they're blocked off by browsers.

Side note: It's kind of funny--seems I'm buying fewer books for myself at book sales these days. Partially because my buying tastes and habits have changed over the years (more details on that in future posts) and partially because one of my big projects at present is building a classroom library for my husband. He's currently going to grad school for certification as an elementary ed teacher--preferably, he'll end up with Pre-K or K but his certificate will be good for up to third grade. I have a couple years head start, since he won't finish for a while yet, but I've thrown myself into it and so far have filled three shelves. At any rate, one of my primary book-saleing reasons these days is the classroom library, so my posts will probably be heavy on young children's books. One of my other foci these days is CDs; since I bought a car with a CD player I've been catching up on all the music I've missed over the past decade or so (including repurchasing an awful lot of 80s/90s stuff that I had on tape)--since I discovered library sales are often good for cheap CDs, that's been a big draw.

So. Simsbury's choices. Overall, the spread was pretty high-quality but a little conservative, which is probably appropriate for this town. Trade PB fiction had a wide spread, but (as is getting more and more common these days), I saw a lot of books I already owned or had borrowed from a library, so I only ended up with one novel. Selection was a little heavy on Oprah books and chick-lit, but that's often the breaks. The humor section (another common destination for me these days, largely because I've been into comic strip collections) was pretty good. Lots of cookbooks--I almost bought a vintage one my mother used to have. A separate section held "specially priced" books, which looked mostly as if they fell into the "vintage" or "rare" category (as opposed to some sales I frequent in which the "specials" are often much more recent); however, since this usually isn't an interest for me, I didn't give it much close review.

CD selection was pretty good for quantity and quality, and I ended up buying six. To my amusement, along with the many Backstreet Boys CDs which always seem to populate these sales, I saw THREE copies of Dave Matthews Band's Under the Table and Dreaming--Hartford suburbs are clearly DMB territory. (I also admit that I bought one of these three.) The conservative streak ended with the Butthole Surfers' Electriclarryland--which I also bought.

The children's book selection was excellent. Again, sorting was better than I've usually seen--I liked the fact that many of the "leveled" learning-to-read books were sorted into a separate category, since for my purpose this makes it easy to pick out classroom stuff at the appropriate level. Also amused at the fact that books about horses warranted their own category; this would have been wonderful for my stepdaughters. (Seriously, if it's possible, I'd suggest that type of sorting for children's books as a more common practice--especially if children are going to browse for themselves at the sale. I know from experience that my kids can be a bit at sea when confronted with a vast number of books because they haven't yet developed the skills to browse quickly over titles and judge interest by the cover or a speedy skim. Arranging school-age kids' books by subject/interest might make the selection process a lot easier.)

I'm a bit of a snob about books that feature cartoon or other TV/movie characters; I won't usually buy them for the classroom library, and this sale seemed to have fewer of those than usual, which was nice. The sorters also did a really good job making sure the books were in good shape and didn't have much crayon, pencil or other scrawl on the inside--that's VERY common for children's used books, and while I try to check and avoid it I occasionally miss something until I get home and find it while I'm shelving. I saw one or two that I put back because of scrawl, but far less than I usually see. I ended up with a lot of high-quality picture books, including quite a few in hardback.

This sale was VERY crowded--one of the more crowded I've attended of late. I think a fair number of attendees were book dealers, judging by the boxes of books waiting on the sidelines for picking over (common practice of dealers--they'll toss stuff into boxes at top speed and high quantity and then sort it all out afterwards so they run the slimmest chance of missing something good--needless to say, I'm not that fond of dealers). The crowd was generally quite polite, however--especially the pleasant teenagers with whom I jockeyed (gracefully) for position at the CD table.

By the time I hit the line, it was fairly short, and the check-out process was run smoothly by someone at the head of the line who monitored the (eight? ten?) separate check-out tables. I actually got to hop the line a little because I was paying by check. The guy who checked me out clearly knew what he was doing and made very efficient work of the process (not always easy in a hectic environment with people buying large quantities of stuff!).

Prices were a little higher than most library sales in my experience, although still cheap. I'd warn buyers that the children's book pricing is steeper than usual. This sale separates children's hardback and paperback (I haven't seen that done elsewhere very often) and charges a buck for the hardbacks; the children's paperbacks are subdivided into larger and smaller sizes for 50 and 25 cents, respectively. That added up--I ended up paying a good bit more for children's books than I usually do. (One thing that needs fixing--possibly the only thing: price lists need to be posted around the gym! I looked for them during the sale several times and did not see any!) CDs were also $3 apiece (I've seen $2 more often than not). Adult hardback/paperback are $1 and 50 cents, respectively, which is standard.

One lovely little touch--a bulletin board in the hallway with a collage of photographs of people and pets, with the sign "Do you know these people? (Found in books, and we didn't want to throw them out.)" Oddly moving.

Best Finds: Great hardback copy of Mary Howlitt/Tony DiTerlizzi's The Spider and the Fly (some macabre little kid in my husband's class is going to enjoy it!). The aforementioned Butthole Surfers' Electriclarryland ("Pepper" is one of my favorite songs). About eight clean, unadorned Dr. Seuss books.

Altogether--this sale was high-class. It's a bit of a haul but I may well be back next time.