Pleasant Hill Library will host its bi-annual book sale Thursday. Oct. 24 to Sunday, Oct. 27 at the library. The sale is hosted by the nonprofit Friends of the Library, an organization that helps fund Pleasant Hill Library’s programming.
While planning and book collection for the sale begin months before the sale itself, the preparation kicked into high gear the weekend before the sale. Staring at 9 a.m. Saturday, volunteers began collecting books for the sale. The majority of the books found at the sale come from the donations of residents, several of whom scour garage and estate sales months beforehand in order to buy up books that can be sold at the sale.
“All the books are either donated […] or include library discards,” said President of Friends of the Library Kathy Swanson.
As the books are collected, volunteers, including a group of retired teachers, organize the books by genre so attendees can better find what they are interested in.
The sale begins from 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24 with the first night being a members-only event. Swanson doesn’t want that to discourage attendance however. Attendees are able to join Friends of the Library at the door and “we are always looking for new members,” said Swanson.
Over the weekend, the sale is open to the public running from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1-3 p.m. on Sunday. Sunday also offers a bag sale where attendees can buy paper balls full of books for only $3.
The sale generally raises $4,000-$5,000 for the library with the rest of the unsold books being donated to various other organizations. Friends of the Library works closely with the American Association of University Women (AAUW) as well as various nursing homes and veterans’ homes and the Dakota County Jail.
“Even though there are leftovers at the end, they go to good places,” says Swanson.
In fact, Friends of the Library works so closely with the Cottage Grove Goodwill in donating whatever books they have left, the store is one of the top sellers of books across Goodwill stores.
Friends of the Library began after the previous Hastings library burned down in 1993. The fire destroyed over 73,000 books and caused more than a million dollars’ worth of damage, according to the Dakota County Historical Society’s exhibit on public libraries in Dakota County. Pleasant Hill Library was built only 15 months after the fire, opening Sept. 11, 1994. According to the exhibit, “Pleasant Hill has had a consistently active ‘Friends of the Library’ and volunteer support group. They have donated funds for the purchase of audio books and microfiche as well as adult and children’s books.”
Volunteers helped the library during that time and never really stopped even to this day.