Book Sale Wrap-Up: ‘Better Than Ever’

By Dottie Evans

A week after the last satisfied customer exited Bridgeport Hall on Wednesday, September 3, bearing an armload of free books, Booth Library Labor Day Book Sale Chairman Joanne Zang is still catching her breath.

“I’m finally de-coma-tizing,” was the way she put it Monday morning.

“Now if the bulk waste handler would just come for the leftover cardboard, I think we’d be done,” Ms Zang said.

Except, she added, for the mountainous, floor-to-ceiling piles of recent donations for next year’s sale –– all waiting to be sorted. Luckily, the staff all showed up to start work, and a new volunteer had just signed on.

So, it begins again. But not before Ms Zang and her intrepid book sale workers take a moment to reflect on this year’s sale, to see how 2003 measured up in the 28-year history of the sale.

“Rare books did very well. We were busy all five days,” said Rare and Collectible Books Chairman John Renjilian, though he thought perhaps there had not been quite the volume of dealers he had seen in other years.

Ms Zang agreed with this assessment. Rare Books was “up” five percent, she said. She also thought “more regular people and not dealers came through, and we sold more children’s books, if that’s any indication.”

“For some reason, the total number of dealers is down. That may be a reflection of the level of the competition, or the state of the economy, or who knows what?” she added.

“Our bag sale was up 33 percent. I knew that because the books were just pouring out of there,” Ms Zang said of Tuesday, September 2, when book sale buyers could walk out with as many books as they could cram into a $5 bag.

“We sold 566 bags last year, and this year we sold 919. Nothing was different –– same price, same bags. We always use Stop & Shop plastic bags.”

As for the 13,000 Long Playing records (9,000 coming from WMNR, and 4,000 received in regular donations), they were virtually all gone.

“I saw a lot of young college people buying the records. They said the quality is better than a CD. Maybe they’re burning them onto CDs,” she commented.

“All the Travel went, and there was tons,” she added.

Ms Zang felt this year’s Labor Day Book Sale did even better than last year, grossing a little more than $113,000, while the 2002 sale was a record breaker at $110,000.

The 2003 sale earned $63,000 on the first day alone, when early buyers paid a $10 admission fee to received numbered entrance tickets. In 2002, the sale netted $62,000 the first day.

Even the weather cooperated, said Ms Zang, because “the rain on Labor Day also helped us.”