8,000 LPs Donated By WMNR —

Labor Day Book Sale Gathers Steam

By Dottie Evans

As longtime Cyrenius Booth Library Book Sale booster Peter Stern leaned possessively across at least 20 sealed cartons of LPs (12-inch Long Playing records that dominated the music industry a generation ago), he could barely contain his excitement.

Mr Stern will be in charge of coordinating the event alongside the person who first launched the idea more than two decades ago, Joanne Zang.

“This is a fabulous collection,” Mr Stern said of the 8,000 LPs that had been donated to the book sale by WMNR-FM, the Monroe classical music station that recently moved its headquarters to a new facility.

“They didn’t have room to store these in the new location. Kurt Anderson [WMNR station manager and son of legendary composer Leroy Anderson] had been to our Labor Day Book Sale last year and he loved it,” Mr Stern said.

In a phone interview with Newtown resident Joyce Goldin, new publicity coordinator for the library’s book sale, Mr Anderson said, “We have donated many wonderful records that have given countless people pleasure over the years, and we are happy that the music will get good homes as a result of the Booth book sale.”

Apparently he had attended the sale not intending to buy much but ended up spending $50, Ms Goldin added.

Once more, Bridgeport Hall at Fairfield Hills will be the site for the sale and, already, volunteers in their maroon book sale T-shirts are beginning the huge task of sorting and arranging the volumes, opening and moving the heavy boxes, making signs, and amassing the collections that are pouring in from other library sales in other towns.

“Not everyone has the ability as we do, to draw a large number of book sale attendees,” Mr Stern commented, “so we often take their books that haven’t been sold and put them in our sale.”

He expects the sale will include at least 160,000 volumes this year, maybe more.

Another early addition to the sale will be a large collection of books on playing bridge, Mr Stern said, adding that it had been a gift from someone’s estate.

“It’s a sad happy sort of thing, because when someone dies, we often are the beneficiaries of these special collections.”

Right now, Bridgeport Hall is eerily empty. But in less than two months it will be overflowing with thousands of hardback, paperback, and rare books, as well as records, tapes and CDs, as the 28th Annual Booth Library Labor Day book sale gathers steam.

The event will open Saturday, August 30, and it will end on Wednesday, September 3.