Milestone Made at Last Weekend's Friends of the Mt. Prospect Public Library Book Sale
A surging number of shoppers finding new summer reads at great prices resulted in last weekend's Friends of the Mt. Prospect Public Library Book Sale to be the largest sale ever for the 41-year-old group.
"Wow, this was a great and fun book sale. Saturday (July 15) was our largest single sale day ever. What is stunning is that Saturday's sales alone totaled more than last April's two-day quarterly book sale or any of the quarterly book sales held in the past," Friends of the Mt. Prospect Public Library President Pat Klawitter said Sunday as the last of the shoppers paid for their books and the doors closed on the most successful book sale ever at 4 p.m. "And Saturday was the biggest crowd of shoppers ever for one day since we've been having quarterly book sales at the library."
"The local community came out in full support. First by donating -books, DVDs, games, music and more all came from the Mt. Prospect community -and then to shop," Klawitter continued. "The first day of the sale, Saturday, we not only had a line waiting to get in before the 9 a.m. sale start, but we had to add more cashiers to help the crowd."
Sales were so brisk in all three sales areas -the better books area upstairs, the bargain books -hardcover and softcover downstairs, and the quarter paperbacks garage area - that two-thirds of the more than 1000 DVDs and half the better books were sold the first day by mid-afternoon. For instance, in the better books room there were only five cookbooks left.
"Our quarter paperbacks were decimated by 2 p.m. Saturday," Klawitter said. "It is the amazing donations we receive from our community and the price points. Every book donated is cleaned and carefully priced to sell by our volunteers at a fair rate."
One shopper who had just flown in for business from Charleston, South Carolina, saw the library book sale listing online, came in and bought about ten books. "I have about 10,300 books in my home library. I enjoy library book sales, especially this one. And I'll be back in the fall," he told a volunteer cashier as he headed downstairs to shop for more books.
In addition, Klawitter said there was also a line the next day, Sunday, waiting to get in for the sale before it opened at 11 a.m.
"What's amazing is that we have quarterly book sales that draw great crowds, but this one was clearly a jackpot for our shoppers," Klawitter said. "One guy even came back on Sunday telling me he couldn't get a book he saw and did not buy Saturday out of his head, so he was back, bought it and took it home. Clearly, our wonderful community supports us with donations and purchases and our dedicated volunteers work to present the library book sales. The volunteers include your neighbors and several local high school students. We thank everyone."
The book sale features hard to find classics, biographies, graphic novels, gardening, travel, history, sport, hobbies, art and cookbooks by top chefs, hard to find computer books, valuable business and finance books, top authors, great mysteries and a huge array of teen and kids' books and games.
All proceeds from the Friends, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, support library programs that would not be available without the Friends. Since its start 41 years ago, Friends has raised close to $ 1 million for the library. It is a group of volunteers dedicated to their community and library that donate their time around the clock to provide the quarterly library book sales. They welcome new volunteers and suggest one go to https://friendsofmppl.mailerpage.com/ for information on how to join.
The next Friends of the Mt. Prospect Public Library Book Sale at 10 S. Emerson St. will be Oct. 21-22, 2023.