Friends of the Library Spring Book Sale Saturday
May 02, 2012
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Friends wouldn’t think of letting friends go home empty-handed from Saturday’s Big Spring Book Sale, where you’ll meet other friends who consider books their best friends.
The friendly event is brought to by Friends of Blanchard Community Library, who want to ensure that nobody leaves without a book or two - or even two dozen! The Big Spring Book Sale will be held May 5 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the north parking lot of the library, 119 N. 8th Street.
Not only is the sale the biggest book bargain in Ventura County - hardbacks 50¢, paperbacks 25¢ and Better Books starting at only $1 - but this year the Silent Auction is turning back its emphasis on local history, with plenty of other goodies up for written bid.
Books featured in the Silent Auction - which runs from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. - include a rare copy of “The Artists’ Barn: A 25 Year Pioneering Adventure in Art” by Mildred Hinckley, whose husband Lawrence was a noted painter and co-founder of the Santa Paula Art Show. “Black Bonanza: How An Oil Hunt Grew Into The Union Oil Company of California” was published in 1950. Other books with local interest and/or authors are “Middle American: An Autobiography” by Floyd Hair, “People-Land-Water: Santa Clara Valley and Oxnard Plain” by Vernon Freeman, “A Pictorial History of Ventura County” by Arnold Murphy, Douglas Shively’s “Recollections of a Country Banker” and “Stagecoaching on the Camino Real: 1861-1901” by historian Charles Outland. Among other notable books so far featured in the silent auction is a set of novels by Zane Grey, “Scouting Two Continents” by Maj. Frederick Russell and a boxed “Audubon’s Birds of America.”
Friends of Blanchard Community Library work year-round to present the sales where the prices can’t be beat, and everything - EVERYTHING! - is half price from 2 to 3 p.m.
Friends Big Book Sales are the most popular in Ventura County. There is always something for every taste in books, from biography and history to literature and politics to children’s and mysteries to how-to and how-not-to and everything in between. Also available at the Big Spring Book Sale are records, tapes, videos, CDs, puzzles and magazines, among other items.
All proceeds from the Friends Big Book Sales - held each Spring and Fall - are used to help offset the library’s needs, from new books and equipment to programs and services. Children and Teen programs, the Homework Center, computers, all benefit from the Friends, who are always looking for volunteers to help them sort and categorize donated books and those culled from the library shelves featured in the sale. The sales rely heavily on volunteers to help set up the thousands of books for eager buyers.
Put a spring in your step as you head to the Friends Big Spring Book Sale this Saturday. And remember: Friends don’t let friends go home empty-handed!
