Los Angeles Times — Book freaks find a way to help their libraries

Source scan page 28

los Angeles Simes
9-9-88
Weekender
SOUTH BAY NEWS
B/Friday, September 9, 1988/ Part I1 9
??
Book freaks' find a way to help their libraries
ook lovers are bound to be waiting Saturday when the doors open at three out Bay
library book sales.
After all, most of the books will be 50 cents or
less. You might pick up a current hard-bound
best-seller for a buck, or a collectible "Oz" book for
$10.
"I'm amazed that people are there before we
open," said Sean Flynn, president of Friends of the
San Pedro Library. "They just love books. People
say, 'My house is already full, but I'm looking for
this particular title.'"
It's also a treat for the volunteers who sort
through the hundreds of donated books and then
sell them.
"I get pleasure out of it," said Myron Gazin, book
sale chairman of Hermosa Beach Friends of the
Library. "We're book freaks with a fair collection of
our own, and we feel we're helping the library."
Book sales will be held Saturday at both the San
Pedro and the Hermosa Beach libraries. Friends of
the Manhattan Beach Library also will have a book
sale but not at the library. The group maintains a
permanent location at the former Robinson School
on Morningside Drive, selling books on the second
and fourth Saturday of the month and every
Wednesday morning. "It's like a regular bookstore," said city Librarian
Lila Held. Library book sales don't seem to have any
negatives. People who want to get rid of books or
magazines may donate them to a library friends
group-and get a receipt for a tax deduction if they
wish. Book buyers get bargain prices, even on
collectibles. And library supporters raise money
that the institutions urgently need for books,
equipment and services. The Hermosa Beach Friends purchased two
computers that are connected to the Los Angeles
County Public Library's book search system. The
Manhattan Beach friends spent $5,000 for two
library computers and donated $1,500 for books and
another $1,500 for children's programs.
Most South Bay libraries? whether city-run or
at special prices.
The Manhattan Beach Friends got $100 for a
McGuffey Eclectic Reader, the standard text in
19th-Century American schools.
This year, the Hermosa Beach Friends have an
1874 history of San Joaquin County in Central
California. Gazin's wife, Patricia, who is in charge of
special books, says it is worth $1,000. Bids are being
taken for that, as well as for five "Oz" books, which
she said are worth $30 each.
"We have frequent spates of coffee-table art
books," she said, "but we're hard-pressed to get $10
for them."
More likely fare is romance novels-they're five
for $1 in Hermosa Beach-current fiction,
Westerns, cookbooks, biographies, encyclopedias,
textbooks on a variety of subjects; also "how to"
books on such things as sailing, boat building and
maintenance, computers, plumbing and automobile
repair.
Over the years, library book sales have
developed hundreds of regular shoppers-some of
whom donate the books they bought one year for
the next year's sale. And there are unusual customers, such as the
young couple who had just moved into a new home
that had lots of shelves for books. "We gave them
yards and yards of books, the ones that hadn't sold,
because we were trying to close and get away," said
HARRY CHASE / Los Angeles Times
Patricia Gazin. Then there are book dealers, who usually come
early and grab the best stuff.
The sellers' advice to everyone else: Get there
Charlotte Malone, left, president of Friends of the Hermosa Beach Library, John Hales, vice
president, and Myron Gazin, book sales chairman, sort books for benefit sale Saturday.
first. Gerald Faris
3 p.m.; and Torrance, 3301 Torrance Blvd., Oct. 8, 10
part of the county system-sell donated or
discarded books to raise money. Some, including
Gardena, Victoria Park in Carson and El Segundo,
keep a permanent shelf of sale books.
Five libraries will have sales within the next
month: Lawndale, 14615 Burin Ave., Sept. 18, 11
a,m. to 5 p.m. in conjunction with the city's Fun Fair
at the Civic Center; Inglewood, 101 W. Manchester
Blvd., Sept. 24, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Lomita, 24200
Narbonne Ave., Oct. 1, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.;
Hawthorne, 12700 S. Grevillea Ave., Oct. 1, 9 a.m. to
a.m. to 2 p.m.
Many people go to library sales dreaming that
What: Library book sales.
they'll find a valuable first edition or other rarity.
It's a long shot, but it has happened.
When: Saturday. Where: Hermosa Beach Library, 550 Pier Ave.,
Gazin recalls a first-edition "Black Beauty,"
Hermosa Beach, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
worth about $40, that was offered for 50 cents at a
Friends of the Manhattan Beach Library bookstore,
Hermosa Beach sale a few years ago. But it didn't
80 Morningside Drive, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. San Pedro Regional Library, 931 S. Gaffey St., 11
fetch even that paltry sum, he said, "Somebody
stole it."
a.m. to 4 p.m.
In most cases, however, special books are offered
manshlad Trowal...