Volunteers Read Between The Lines Of The Donated Books

By Nancy K. Crevier

What people donate to a book sale and what people buy at a book sale can speak volumes about them, say volunteers from the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library Annual Book Sale.

“As book sorters, it says a lot about us, too,” said Pete Stern. “We create a persona based on what we see in the donation.”

“We never meet the people who donate the books, for the most part,” said Pat Marshall. “But you look at a collection of books and you feel like you know the person.”

There are some obvious interpretations, of course. A donation of a large number of cookbooks might suggest that the donor loved to cook. A collection of role-playing books suggests a love for games and pretense. A horse-lover might give boxes of books about horse breeds, horse care, and novels that feature the horse. There are subtleties within the donations, though, that give the sorters pause.

“When we do pickups of big lots of books, especially, we really feel like we learn about the person,” said Ms Marshall. “One place we went to, there were many, many cookbooks. But they didn’t all look used.”

What Mr Stern noticed about that cookbook collection was that many of the recipes were marked. “It was clear that this person loved food, wanted to try these recipes. Maybe they ran out of time, who knows?”

The cookbook lover was also a collector of paper doll books and books all about the Kennedys and the Onasises, giving further insight into the person who owned the books.

There are book collections that hint of the person’s concerns in life. A large number of books about cancer, books about healing, books about spirituality might imply that that book donor had gone through a troubling period in his or her life.

“We got in a couple of boxes with tons of books on witchcraft and the Wicca movement,” said Ms Marshall. “We wondered if the person had become disillusioned with the whole Wicca thing, or had they just been doing research? The books were tossed in with a bunch of Dr Seuss books, and I thought, ‘I’d like to meet that person!’” she said.

Collections of history books tell of the givers fascination of the past, said Mr Stern, but when the books lean heavily toward one aspect of history, such as World War II or the Civil War, a little bit more about the person comes to light.

Donations of large numbers of outdated nursing and medical textbooks and manuals tell the volunteers that someone is suffering from separation anxiety. “We can’t do anything with these books. People can’t let go of them, though, and they can’t bear to throw them out. They may have sentimental value or are reminders of a time in that person’s past. The library is sort of a last refuge when parting with the texts is finally a practical thing,” surmised Mr Stern.

Occasionally the books spill other secrets to the book sorters. “We get lots of pictures, even old family pictures,” Mr Stern said. “We get whole photo albums and diaries.”

Postcards, old letters, and receipts seem to be popular as bookmarks and often are donated along with the books. Where people have been, where their friends have been, where they shopped and when, who loved them and who did not, spill from the pages into the laps of the volunteers.

“You don’t meet the people but you feel you know them,” said Mr Stern.

On the other side of the book sale is the checkout, where volunteers get to see who collects what. “There is no limit to what [kinds of books] people collect. Our job is to connect them to the book sale,” Mr Stern said. The collectible items usually go into special sections at the book sale, divided into adult collectibles and children’s collectibles.

Denise Kaiser is the volunteer in charge of children’s collectibles area, which is not necessarily for children. “There are people who collect Dick and Jane books. The originals of these all go into the children’s collectibles.”

Reprints of children’s books put out by publisher Grosset and Dunlap in the 1930s and 40s go immediately into the children’s collectibles, she said. “They are not rare, but sometimes the illustrations are pretty, and people collect them,” she said.

Another thing that people like to buy, she said, are books signed by the author. “Nowadays, authors will do mass signings of hundreds of books, not like in the early 1900s when an author might have signed only a few copies. But they are still collectible. Some people just like to have signed copies of books,” she said.

Unusual books that are not good enough to survive the book sale in the regular children’s section will be found in the collectibles area, as well.

Tween-ager series are also popular with book collectors, said Ms Kaiser. Some of the first edition children’s series books are collectible, but because the library receives too many to go through and determine which are more valuable than others, they are stocked in the regular children’s section.

An adult who appreciates marine literature will be happy to come across collectibles such as a set of reprints of Classics of Naval Literature that was recently received. “Someone might find that series and be thrilled. The books are listed online anywhere from $6 a copy to over $200,” added Mr Stern.

Some of the highlights to be found in the 2007 collectibles during the June 30 to July 5 sale include a complete set of the Cambridge Medieval History; a collection of Tarzan comics, books, and poster in English, French, German and Italian; car catalogs, including for Rolls-Royce; graphic journals with CDs; school texts, including readers, dating from the late 19th to mid-20th Century; rare issues of comic books in plastic sleeves; scripts of the most important 20th Century plays from the estate of local theatrical producer/director Evelyn Thomas; an eclectic collection of academic monographs on the US Civil War, social, and political movements; guides and video tapes on woodworking; and a catalog of Sotheby’s auction September 11 to 19, 1997, of important objects belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Because the library receives such a huge quantity of books that must be sorted every year, it is impossible for volunteers to identify every rare or collectible tome that passes through, and that is no disaster said Ms Kaiser and Mr Stern.

“We almost count on missing collectible and rare books,” said Mr Stern. “We want people to find that gem. We like to see people finding that book that makes them happy. That’s what makes the sale.”

Treasured by those who give and treasured by those who receive, it is clear to book sale volunteers that there are messages louder than words that lie within books.