The annual book sale organized by the Friends of the Seattle Public Library is celebrating its 36th anniversary this year, and the event now held in an airplane hangar at the former Sand Point Naval Base has grown substantially in that time.
In fact, it now takes a core group of approximately 30 volunteers working year round to put the sale on, said Maple Leaf resident Joan Amatucci, the paid book-sale director for the past 11 years.
"We've easily tripled in 10 years, and in the past five years we've doubled," she said of the sales of not just books, but also videos, CDs and record albums - an ancient technology involving large disks made of vinyl.
During last year's sale, for example, shoppers bought more than a quarter-million items, Amatucci said in some wonder. One source of the books and other things are the public libraries themselves, she explained.
Old library books are replaced with new editions, and blockbusters that have lost their allure are jettisoned to make room for the latest fads in literature, according to Amatucci. "But an important and critical [source] are the donations we get from the public." Those donations account for 60 to 65 percent of the sales, she added.
Doug Lorentzen, a Queen Anne resident and year-round volunteer for the sale, agreed. He's been at it for 10 years, and the word has gotten out, he said. "Sometimes I wake up and find boxes of books at my front door," said Lorentzen, who has no idea where the books came from.
Bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Third Place Books also donate tomes to the cause, as do book publishers and newspapers getting rid of review copies of books, he said. Those aren't the only kinds of donations. "Last year, we had a large donation of videos from Hollywood Video, Lorentzen noted.
The sale also gets "oodles" of collectible books and some pretty rare ones that are stored in a special room, Amatucci said. Last year, that included a signed book by Salvador Dalí that sold for $4,000, she said. This year, the rare books include one about John Wayne, which an Internet site values at between $75 and $100, along with a signed Norman Rockwell book.
The collectible and rare books will be for sale during a silent auction and preview on Friday, Sept. 28, for Friends of the Library members, Amatucci said. "Anybody can become a member. You just need to sign up at the door," she said of a membership that costs $15.
Customers at the sale vary from the very young to senior citizens, and they sometime come from as far away as Los Angeles, Lorentzen said. "We also have [out-of-town] people who time their vacations to the time of the book sale," he added.
Lorentzen, who picks up books in a truck, also drives a forklift to move pallets of books. He estimates the forklift dates back to the late 1940s or early 1950s, and Lorentzen is just one of a few people involved with the sale who are certified to operate it.
Volunteering for the book sale has its enjoyable moments. "For a lot of us, working year round and sorting the books arouses your hunting instincts," he smiled. For instance, Lorentzen said, the volunteers had a betting pool about when the first new Harry Potter book would show up.
But volunteers don't get first dibs on the good stuff, and there are no freebies, Amatucci stressed. "We don't allow anything that's higher-priced to go out of here," she said. "We also want to respect the people who donate to us."
Amatucci estimates that the Friends of the Library sell around 8o percent of the donated items, but there are some books that are hard to move. "Nobody wants a book about selling real estate in the 1980s," she said. "[Outdated] computer books are another great example."
As for the leftovers, a company picks them up and tries to sell them over the Internet, paying the Friends a percentage, Lorentzen added.
As noted above, the preview sale for members takes place on Friday, Sept. 28, starting at 6:30 p.m. The sale will be open for business on Saturday, Sept. 29, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Sunday that weekend from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The location is a large airplane hangar to the left as you enter the area from Northeast 74th Street. There will be signs.
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.
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