Ohio’s largest fall book sale is ready for year 62

Ohio’s largest fall book sale is ready for year 62
Submitted

Patrons hunting for book bargains on opening day at last year’s book sale.

                        

The largest used book sale in the fall in Ohio is preparing for its 62nd year. The sale is a collaborative effort of the Wooster branch of the American Association of University Women and the Kiwanis Club of Wooster.

This year’s sale will kick off on Wednesday, Sept. 25 and close on Saturday, Sept. 28. Hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.

Friday will be half-off day, and Saturday will be $5 per shopping bag day.

Earlier this year both clubs committed to continuing the sale in 2020 and beyond. Club legend has it the sale was started in 1957 by two AAUW members: Geri Burden and Nancy Slayton. In 2008 the AAUW and Kiwanis formed a partnership to share the work in collecting and processing the donated books.

“We estimate that we will have over 47,000 books on sale at the Wayne County Fairgrounds sale in September,” said Don Ackerman, president of Wooster Kiwanis. “Work on this year’s sale started almost immediately after last year’s sale finished. We don’t hold over any stock from one year to the next, so collecting over 47,000 books takes our volunteers a full year to process that many books and to prepare for the sale.”

Ackerman said books are dropped off weekly, Thursdays and Saturdays, at the processing facility, or sometimes for large quantities, volunteers pick them up. The process begins with each book being inspected at the presorting station. Books that do not meet the sales criteria are picked up by Goodwill for recycling or sale in its stores. The remaining books are passed on either to a cleaning station where volunteers further inspect and wipe them down or to the vintage desk.

The cleaned books are then moved to pricing stations, where volunteers who are specialized in pricing certain types of books evaluate and price them accordingly. Vintage books, generally published before 1950, are checked for their current value on a number of online websites. In general books are priced at a bargain level, typically in the $2-$7 range.

The final phase of the process involves sorting cleaned and priced books into one of more than 60 categories such as mysteries, romance, military and children’s literature.

Ackerman said the weekend before the sale, about 1,400 cartons (34 pallets) of books are moved to the Wayne County Fairgrounds.

“We are grateful for the extra help we get from the College of Wooster men’s basketball team and the Wooster High School girls soccer team as well as several nonclub members during the setup and tear-down of the sale,” Ackerman said.

“The quality of the books on display is excellent; 95 percent are donated from private owners or Books In Stock, a local used book store, and not castaways from local libraries,” said Susie Slack, president of AAUW’s Wooster branch. “Many books are from the private collections of college professors and cover a huge range of topics. This includes bestselling fiction and nonfiction, rare and collectibles, as well as children’s literature. Book dealers from all over Ohio and neighboring states come to the sale looking for and finding volumes priced at bargain prices.”

Both Ackerman and Slack are excited that for the first time all major credit cards will be accepted at the sale in September. Sales were by cash or check only.

Volunteers from both clubs are continually present at the sale to assist patrons and to continuously reload tables with new stock. Asked about unusual items sold in past events, Slack mentioned that AAUW club historian Letty Nault has documented that the sale played a role of sorts in 1993 when the movie, “Shawshank Redemption,” was being filmed at the Ohio State Reformatory in nearby Mansfield.

The script called for lots of books. Those who have seen the movie will recall the character, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), started a letter-writing campaign to create a prison library. The AAUW members in Wooster were contacted, and several volunteers came together to sort out 5,000 volumes that were sold to the film company and constituted the biggest single sale to date.

Another feature of the sale is that no sales tax is collected. All proceeds go to AAUW’s fund to provide scholarships to women whose education has been interrupted and to Kiwanis for use in its many projects to benefit Wooster youth.

For more information on drop-offs or anything else related to the sale, go to www.woosterkiwanis.org/booksale.

The Wayne County Fairgrounds is located at 199 Vanover St. in Wooster.


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