Booked for the year: Friends of the Davis Public Library to hold weekly book sales through December

PHOTO: The Friends of the Davis Public Library holds book sales every Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the parking lot of the library. 

By Grace Kishiyama,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Since the start of the pandemic, the Friends of the Davis Public Library — a group made up of volunteers who, according to the group’s website, “raise funds, plan for expansion of physical facilities, develop the library’s book collection, encourage reading programs for children, and (promote) the library as a cultural center for the city of Davis” — have had to find new ways to help support the local library.

“We give over $100,000 a year to the library and they use that for programs that they wouldn’t ordinarily have the funding (for),” said Rory Osborne,  president of the Friends of the Davis Public Library.

The Friends had to devise a new way to hold their bi-monthly community book sales to fall within the guidelines of local health protocols.

The idea of a weekly outdoor sale of gently used books was the result of COVID-19 restrictions and the temporary closure of the Mary L. Stephens Davis Library.

“The library is still not open for having a sale inside … what we’ve been doing in the meantime is Friday pop-up sales,” Osborne said.

The book variety at sales is limited. 

“We just sell a limited number of subjects each day because we have a limited amount of space outside here and we rotate the subjects every week – some (subjects) we keep the same,” Osborne said.

The book sales are not only beneficial to the local library, fellow book lovers enjoy them as well.

“I love books, and I love used or gently used books because that means somebody bought it, maybe loved it and is passing it along,” customer Sarah Alexander said.

The book sale on Oct. 22 was the first Friends of the Davis Library book sale she has attended.

“I was visiting my friend in Davis and she said there was a book sale so we came,” Alexander said.

Fellow Davis community member Lori Maloney is a fan of the weekly book sales and has been going weekly to the book sales since the Friends started them.

“This little weekly sale is better (than the big three-day sales) because it’s less overwhelming and they have certain topics that they announce so you can kind of just spend five to 10 minutes picking out a book or three,” Maloney said.

“(The sale) is nice because it’s outside so you don’t have to worry about getting COVID,” she added.

The rainy weather on Oct. 22 posed some challenges for the volunteers running the sale.

“We had to wait for the sun to come out. We were probably at least an hour late in getting (the sale) underway but otherwise (it was) pretty good,” Osborne said.

Eventually, the Friends hope to return to their large three-day sales.

“Once we can get back in (to the library), we’re hoping for February, we’ll be having them again indoors,” Osborne said.