WACO, Texas (KXXV) — The Waco Library Book Sale returns to the Extraco Events Center with thousands of books and media items, continuing a tradition that spans more than 60 years.
- The Library Book Sale has been a shopping staple here in Waco since 1962
- Doors open Thursday, November 13th at 10AM and runs through Sunday, November 16 at 6 p.m.
- For more information on the sale, click here.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
All four branches of the Waco Public Libraries — Central, East, South and West — collaborate to host the annual event, where items start at just 50 cents. This year's sale features an expanded selection including children's books, cookbooks, romantic novels, thrillers, DVDs, board games and a new addition: vinyl records.
Amy Swanson, President of Friends of the Library, said the sale serves as both a way for libraries to refresh their collections and raise crucial funding for local library programs.
"This is our biggest event of the year," Swanson said.
The inventory comes from year-round donations and books withdrawn from library collections. Volunteer staff members sort through donations throughout the year to prepare the thousands of items available at the sale.
"We get donations throughout the year. We have a wonderful sort room volunteer. We have wonderful sort room volunteers who throughout the year compile these books that we get donated. There are also books that are withdrawn from the collection that maybe a little older, um and so those come to the sale as well, but we do take donations throughout the year and our sort room staff sorts through those and then bring the thousands of books that you see at the sale, um, as well as CDs, DVDs, uh, vinyl records, so a lot of different things," Swanson said.
The sale opens Thursday at 10 a.m. with a $10 admission fee from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., then becomes free after 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday admission is free all day.
All proceeds directly benefit the Waco McLennan County Library system, funding community programs and infrastructure improvements. The Friends of the Library has supported summer reading programs, self-checkout systems and various community initiatives.
"So the money completely 100% goes to making the Waco McClennan County Library better. So all funds do help fund programs in the community, programs, um, yeah, throughout. Summer reading is a really big one that we fund. So all those funds do go back into the library and to our community members," Swanson said.
The organization provides prizes, t-shirts and funding for the app that patrons use to track summer reading progress. This year, they also funded self-checkout systems at several library locations.
"For the summer reading, for example, we provide the prizes for that, the t-shirts, we also pay for the app that students, uh, or that, um, patrons use to track their summer reading, and so really those incentives to get people excited about reading as well. We funded a couple of self checkouts this year, uh, one of the library, a couple of the libraries, and so it's, it's all about helping, um, the community and the wonderful programs that the library runs," Swanson said.
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