Having seen pictures online throughout the day of the various treasures that were being scored at the annual Friends of the Library Booksale, I decided to brave the fearsome Okie winds and head out to the Oklahoma Expo Building at the Fairgrounds to attend the famed Booksale, returning for the first time in twenty years this past Saturday afternoon.
Like a grownup version of the vaunted Scholastic Book Fair—except all the books are mostly used and, even better, extremely cheap—the Booksale is one of the more inventive ways the public library funds their programs, with nearly a million items—books, compact discs, DVDs, and so on—on sale, most likely all of them for under a dollar.
While many of the books are library discards, much of the material has been donated to various libraries around town and, what they can’t use, goes on top of the sale pile. Back when I worked for the Metropolitan Library System, going through the donations was usually the happiest part of my job, from pulling the books and records that I wanted first dibs on to throwing out the used pornography no one wanted—and there was plenty of it—the course of pure adrenaline that rushed through your bloodstream must be what cocaine feels like.
I’m guessing, from what I read in books, of course.