Volunteer
Newsletter
September 2012
Spring 2012 Another successful sale! The earnings of the Spring 2012 Friends of the Library Booksale continued to be very high, but the economy and rapid technological changes did have their effect... We still had as many items for sale However, the success of as usual and over 80% sold, but the book sale can be meabuyers tended to buy them later in sured by much more than the sale. After the sale, coordinator money earned. Beryl Barr met with category sorters to discuss ways of maximizing income. Some of her suggestions included: 1) Sending more books to Collectors Corner; 2) Being sure that all best sellers are out on the first day; 3) Keeping shelves neat and organized at all times; 4) Moving books down from the top and up from the bottom as shelves empty; 5) Putting attractive books face out on the shelves when space becomes available.
The 224,000 Books, Games, DVDs, CDs, LPs, videos and audio tapes that were sold will provide long-term enjoyment and information to thousands of buyers at very low cost. A very satisfied children’s customer
Another bonus of the Booksale is the pleasure that buyers get just from the process of looking and finding treasures. This was symbolized for us by the little girl who jumped into the Children’s Room’s big blue chair and threw her arms out wide, exclaiming: “I JUST LOVE THIS PLACE!” Continues on p.2 Curtis, a 2012 photography graduate of TC3, is excited about the Photography Section.
Book Sale Coordinator Beryl Barr
tions, such as: schools, jails, hospitals, daycare mothers, and religious organizations. Even partially colored activity books go to such places as the waiting rooms of Convenient Care, Samaritans, MacCormick Center, an African orphanage and a Navajo reservation.
During the year, books are chosen for the Christmas baskets of Cops to Kids and the Salvation Army. Before the sale, many items are taken by local libraries and school libraries. After the sale, free books also go to a wide variety of other non-profit organiza-
Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library
Inside this issue: Anniversary Party Foreign Language Section Anecdotes Best Friends of the Friends Photo Gallery
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www.booksale.org
Booksale Volunteer Newsletter
Spring Sale Con’t. Finally, there is the enjoyment that the volunteers, themselves, gain from their work. When volunteers are asked why they work at the Booksale, they often say, “I like books or I like the people”. However, observation leads to the conclusion that the time spent at the great green warehouse provides many kinds of satisfactions. Love of Books: Some workers just love books - art books, old books, those on a particular topic or - just any book. A new worker entering the building for the first time was heard to exclaim: “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven!” Socializing: For many the contacts with other book lovers, as they work or have coffee together, are a major motivation. In addition to their shared interest in books, workers talk about their families, their jobs or other interests, for example, the quilters bring each other up to date on their work.
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Reminiscences from Anniversary Party Attendees... The first book sale the Friends had in 1947, made $400 for the public library, which was used to purchase a record player and some records for the library. One of the officers said afterwards, “Well, I guess we will have to continue to have the book sales until the attics of Ithaca are empty!” ~ related by Betta Hedland
A few years ago, I biked into Ithaca, thinking I might make a new home here, after having traveled around New England for a few months. A certain Friends’ volunteer, Jeffrey Juran, struck up a conversation with me outside of Greenstar, where I was buying lunch and wondering where to sleep that night. Sure enough, I spent that night on Jeffrey’s couch, and the next morning, he brought me along to the warehouse. After a few minutes there, I said, “Oh! I’m staying!” Thanks Jeffrey! Thanks Friends! ~ Tyler Neill
that delving into each new box is like opening Christmas presents - you never know what to expect! Winnie Kostroun and Connie Thomas examining a “find.”
Solitude: Surprisingly, the Booksale can also serve as a refuge for those who need time to themselves. One can work quietly at fine sorting in one’s own category with only brief contacts with others.
A number of years ago when I was cashiering, a lovely college girl came through, purchasing a boxed set of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with block print illustrations. I exclaimed, “Where did you find that? My father used to have that!” She paid for them and then handed them to me, saying, “You should have these; they obviously mean more to you than me.” I told her I didn’t have my wallet with me. She said, “They’re a gift - remember your father.” ~ Virginia Fenton
June 17th was a spectacular day...
What did we celebrate? The 65th anniversary of the book sale, twenty years at Esty Street, and 4½ million dollars given to libraries in Tompkins County! We had toe tapping music by the Holler Tree band, adults and children were spell bound by Mike “the Magician” Stanley, many games, and lots of conversation. Mr. and Mrs. Tony Egner were honored because they made our presence at Esty street possible. They sold us the building for a very reasonable price and the parking lot for one
dollar. And if you always wondered how we get the booksale together this was a chance for a behind the scenes tour. It was all made possible by the hard work of our volunteers. The generosity of “Cops, Kids, and Toys” tents provided much appreciated shade. If you did not come you missed a great (More party photos on the back page.) time! Phyllis Rappaport admiring the yummy raspberry-filled whipped cream cake.
Working with James Bond and Mr. D! Painting the kitchen area. Thanks! ~ Kal__ Smith Avoidance: Working with books can provide a respite from the tasks and stresses of everyday life. A frequently voiced reason for being at the Booksale is to avoid doing something else - such as cleaning house, or something unpleasant such as the noise of roofers pounding at home.
Party organizer, past president, and long-time volunteer, Ellie May, presents flowers to Joan and Tony Egner.
Ellen Bonn, longest serving volunteer with 40 + years, wears the anniversary pin created by Frances Fawcett to honor past presidents, coordinators, and those with over 20 years of service.
Service to Others: All of the workers find satisfaction in supporting the libraries and selling books to be reread instead of recycled. Most enjoy helping customers find the books they want.
Organization: Many people gain satisfaction from sorting and putting things in order (who as children sorted their crayons by color and their blocks by shape). As primary sorters they enjoy being sure that each book goes into its proper box. If they are category sorters, they love making their sections neat and logically organized. Curiosity: One of the cookbook sorters added Curiosity to our list. She said
I was cashiering and a man had an old paperback. It was 10 cent day. After he paid for it he opened it and the message was: “Dear Grandpa, We stood in line three hours to get you this signature of Micky Mantle!” ~ Anon
The Friends throw a party!
Larry Jensen fine tunes the organization of the Science Fiction & Fantasy section.
Pride of Achievement: As one longterm volunteer said: “We may not be the largest book sale in the country, but we’re the best!” IT’S ONLY HUMAN TO FEEL PROUD OF OURSELVES FOR OUR PART IN MAKING ITHACA A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE!
Mike Stanley’s magic show was enjoyed by all ages.
www.boksale.org
Volunteer Julie Johnson organized a mini booksale.
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Booksale Volunteer Newsletter
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BOOKS, LIVRES, LIBROS, BüCHER, BOEKEN, KNIHY, KIRJAT The number of different languages to be found in the foreign language section is amazing. While there were many shelves of the French, German, and Spanish, there were a total of 50 different languages in the Spring Book Sale.
Japanese
Maori
Fred Gleach, who works in Collectors Corner, sent us this picture of a Bible in Fijian (which he bought from this shelf) .
Swedish
Fijiian Bible from the foreign language section
While the Children’s Foreign Language section is small, it contains many interesting books and sells well. There is usually a full shelf each of French, Spanish, and German with a number of books in each of Russian, Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese and Chinese. In addition there are always one or more books in a wide variety of unusual languages. Recent examples: a coloring book in Obijwe (a Canadian Native American language), Little House on the Prairie in Turkish, and Peter Rabbit in Latin (Pabula
German Lorrie Young sorting the Foreign Language Fine Art section.
www.booksale.org
Petro Cuniculo). Lorrie has been extremely helpful in identifying unusual languages for Laurel, who sorts Children’s Foreign Languages. We wonder who contributes books in such languages as Basque and Yoruba and once contributed, who buys them? We don’t know the answer to the first question, but we do know that many people buy books they can’t read. For example: Fred Gleach can’t read his Fijian Bible. He told us that linguists often collect Bibles in different languages as research tools. When the great linguist, Edward Sapir, first met his prospective in-laws they were quite impressed, thinking that he must be a very religious person because of all the Bibles on his shelves!
Arabic, Armenian, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Cherokee, Coptic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Fijian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maori, Mayan, Mohawk, Nepali, Niger-Congo, Norwegian, Nyanja, Obijwe, Papiamento, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Yoruba. (Nyanja is spoken in Southern Africa and Papiamento is spoken in the Caribbean Islands.) Lorrie Young as been in charge of the section since 1997; before that she did Sociology. Her helpers include Christi Lerch who sorts German, Dutch and Yiddish, Viktor Kislukhin: Russian, and Laurel Hodgden: Scandinavian languages. Lorrie sorts all the rest and is extremely knowledgeable about languages in general. Lorrie initiated a special section for art, architecture, travel and other books with beautiful illustrations. There is also a special shelf for Bibles in many languages.
Indonesian
French
The following conversation was overheard in this section between two college students “Are you buying any more Latvian poetry today?” “No, I have enough”. When asked if he reads Latvian, the student replied, “No I just liked the way they looked on the shelf ”. Finally, many of the art & architecture books mentioned above are purchased just for their pictures. Of course, with the very cosmopolitan population of Ithaca many of the books, even from the more exotic languages, are bought by customers who buy them to read.
Chinese
Czeck
Italian
Spanish
Cherokee
Georgian
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Booksale Volunteer Newsletter
April...er, June... Fool! The following E-mail was received at the Booksale in June: “I have 42 boxes of books I would like to deliver Saturday before noon, but I may be a little late, but not more than two hours probably. They are mostly Time-Life books, Readers Digest Condensed books, and encyclopedias. I would like a receipt but I don’t know how to count them. For example, if the covers have fallen off a hardcover does it count as a softcover? And if a Readers Digest Condensed book contains four books does it count as four? I’m also letting you have instructions on how to remove mildew, which should be useful. You don’t have to count it. “ - - - Because Sarah is a very nice person, she replied politely to indicate that none of the items which this person wished to donate were acceptable----and then discovered that the E-Mail had come from Rich!
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Book Sale Anecdotes A treasure Found When I (Laurel) was a child my father enjoyed reading to my sister and me. He liked classic children’s books as much as we did. One of his students told me that he once quoted from Winnie the Pooh to a class in advanced electrical engineering. His favorite quote: “The rea-
son, my dear, seems exceedingly clear, it’s my duty, and has to be done!” was from a character known as
“Policeman Bunny.” (Which my father repeatedly said, whenever there was something he didn’t want to do.)
Most comics books go to their own section in the front of the sale though some less violent ones go to Children’s, for example a copy of Blondie - which happened to be written in Cherokee! Sometimes it is unclear to which section a comic should go; for example, should a comic on the development of psychoanalysis go to adult’s or children’s Comics or to Psychology? Finally there are those which should be comic books and aren’t - Children’s received a hard paged baby book of X-Men. Baby books are intended for one and two year olds, which X-Men definitely is not!
The Tutmobile
This unusual Vehicle was parked in the Booksale parking lot; would you guess that the owner was visiting the Archeology section?
Psychoanalysis Comic
Policeman Bunny
Years later we tried to track the book down for him, but without either title or author, were unable to do so. This spring, one of the incoming boxes in Children’s contained an oversize linen book from the 1930’s. When Kyllikki opened it, some crumbling paper fell out – which happened to be a page from “Policeman Bunny,” complete with the quote!
Unusual Titles & Topics
The back of the van says, “Let’s hear one for the Tut! Honk if you love the boy king.”
Never too Late... A customer was seen leaving the art section with her arms full of all the “How to Paint” books from the shelves. She explained that a 92 year old friend is learning to paint and she wanted to give her a little help.
A volunteer left us this list of “Titles that made me laugh”: “Anatomy of the Wood Rat”, “Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Field Guide to Identification”, “Frugal Gambling”, and “The Bed-wetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee”. A title from another source: “The Sterbotactic Atlas of the Chimpanzee Brain”. A paperback entitled “Vampire Dream” appeared to be a typical young adult occult-romance paperback until one noticed the small print indicating that it serves as a resource for preparing for the SAT vocabulary exams. (Another in series is titled “Busted” about an undercover agent posing as a teenage high school student to ferret out a drug ring.)
Kama Sutra Pop-up
Appropriate sex-education books written for children are included in the Children’s Science section. However, we were taken aback recently when the following four books were sent to us in one week! “How I worked my Way Through College Using Sex”, “Nancy Clue and the Hardly Boys” (a lesbian parody of Nancy Drew), and a book picturing a football scrimmage titled “Dealing with Sexual Interactions,” which turned out to belong neither in sports or sex, but in religion. Finally an old Pop-up book – the Kama Sutra – with amazingly pornographic illustrations!
Peg Lacey’s Lola Jane, an SPCASpecial
Best Friends of the Friends
One of Tom and Kyllikki Inman’s outside pets - one of their many flying squirrels...
The many pet owners who volunteer should be sure to check out the Pet section in the back right hand corner (across from Sports).
Well organized by Louanne Gordon, the section contains non-fiction and fiction books about dogs, cats, and a wide variety of other pets from gerbils to turtles. Three titles of interest: “Enslaved by Ducks”, “Insects As Pets”, and “Potbellied Pigs in Your Home.” Tom (Photography Section) and Kyllikki (Children's Section) Inman have inside pets and outside "pets.” Inside they have 2 cockatiel parrots, Rocky and Sydney, who are tremendous fun. Outside, they have 9 (or more) Flying Squirrels who come to their 3 feeding platforms. Tom has put up infrared video cameras so they can watch all their squirrel antics every night - they are always the best thing "on TV.” Heather Linton and her family have made homes for three abandoned dogs from Puerto Rico. Heather writes: “I took my first trip to Puerto Rico in February 2008, and learned about the terrible problem they have with stray dogs (or “satos”). The residents often don’t spay or neuter due to lack of awareness, and the dogs run rampant in the neighborhood, so there are many unwanted strays. After returning home, I researched shelters and adopted Charley from the small island of Vieques, off Puerto Rico’s eastern coast. He was found in the woods with 8 other puppies,
Sex is not the only controversial topic to come to Children’s. A cute book recently came in with a picture of a mother squirrel holding her little boy squirrel on her lap. The title? – “Why Mommy is a Democrat.” A paperback “Playing the Hand Life Dealt and Winning the Jackpot !” with a winning poker hand on the cover was found appropriately in Games - only very small print at the bottom indicated that it was about dealing with Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Fibromyalgia!
Frances & Nate Fawcett’s yellow lab, Moby Duke, enjoys a dip in their pond.
and all were flown to Boston’s Logan Airport to go to various adoptive homes in the Northeast.I had told the shelter that I wanted a medium-sized dog with a big personality, and I got him. “Three years later, in May 2011, I took my second trip to Puerto Rico. We steeled ourselves against adopting another dog, but two puppies on a deserted beach really adopted us. After following us on the beach for 45 minutes, Pancho and Rosie wormed their scrawny bodies into our hearts. After returning home, I found a local shelter that was willing to pick them up and get them healthy enough to fly to the US (dogs coming from Puerto Rico only need a health certificate and rabies vaccine). We originally thought they were 2-month old Australian Shepherd mixes, because of their cropped tails, but it turned out they were 5-month old Terrier/Chihuahua mixes. My sister now owns Rosie, and Charley has a new little brother named Pancho. For more information on helping stray dogs in Puerto Rico, you can visit saveasato.org or allsatorescue.org.” Ruby and Leaf Turner have four cats. Here Jenny, Pamina, and Aphrodite wait for their treats, while Messalina poses in solitary splendor on the stairs.
Inside pets Sydney and Rocky enjoy their favorite treat - popcorn!
Pancho and Charlie with Heather Linton
Jean Nowak’s cat Sydney extends a helpful paw.
Boomer and Cooper, Nancy Cool’s good friends
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Booksale Volunteer Newsletter
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Photo Gallery
Eric and Cheryl Humerez were married in their backyard garden June 10th, 2012, in a small ceremony with the only attendants being Eric’s parents and brother Ron, Cheryl’s sister and brotherin-law (Gail and Jere Furcha), and of course their son Patrick. Eric writes, “The family that sorts CDs together stays together!”
The finished book sale quilt made by the Book Sale Quilters for a fundraiser for Cayuga Chamber Orchestra. See the full quilt on our website: www.booksale.org
More photos from the party...
Karen Trotter & the Library Cat
Deb Miller with a friend Happy winner of a tote!
Barbara and Usha Sue Merrill
Kyllikki Inman
Chalk drawing in the parking lot was a popular activity. Nancy Cool & Ellie May
Sarah Hatcher and Don Trotter
Doug Reid & Bill Mutch
Kids had fun making their own “little books.”
