After more than three decades, New Canaan Library’s book sale likely will be suspended indefinitely following next week’s installment, as no one has stepped in to oversee and operate the entirely volunteer-run, twice-yearly event, officials say.
Geri Tobias (L) and Karen Willett were co-leaders of the New Canaan Library’s Book Sale that ran in December. Credit: Michael Dinan
The book sale will run June 12 to 14 (next weekend), and after that it likely will be discontinued, New Canaan Libarry Director Lisa Oldham said.
“Essentially, if nobody steps up in the next couple of weeks, we will probably have to cancel it,” she said.
The book sale, named for longtime volunteer John Randolph, has been operating for more than 30 years, officials say, and each installment brings in about $13,000.
The sale itself—the result of a donated book collection that builds up every six months—is a “huge logistical exercise” that has been run expertly and with innovation for the past two years by New Canaan resident Karen Willett, Oldham said. Willett is credited with launching an online auction to bolster the traditional book sale, and engaging the community in new ways through the widely anticipated event.
New Canaan Library no longer is accepting donated books, as the organization is forced to discontinue its volunteer-run book sale. Credit: Michael Dinan
“It is important to us and I would like to keep it, but it’s a lot of work for the volunteers,” Oldham said. “A lot of labor goes into this.”
Asked about her experience in running the book sale these past two years (recently with Geri Tobias), Willett said it’s been “a great fit.”
“I was eager to support the library, which I consider to be one of our town’s best assets,” Willett said. “I also love books and enjoy the process of sorting and pricing the thousands of donations we receive each year. I had no prior experience with libraries or book sales so it was a daunting task at first, but it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I have learned so much and have gotten to know a lot of great New Canaanites along the way.”
A transplanted New Yorker who moved to town in 2013, Willett has developed a blueprint for running the library book sale that could be picked up and applied by a new volunteer.
Willett, a fan and regular user with the rest of her family of the library’s wide-ranging programs, said she discovered New Canaan Library soon after moving here, and complimented its staff for “always looking for new ways to respond to the needs and interests of the New Canaan community.”
People bring in used books every day and a team of volunteers reviews them, deciding what’s saleable and what is not—dividing up the former group by genre and donating the rest to Goodwill, Oldham said. Libraries in Wilton, Westport and Ridgefield also run book sales in one form or another, though Darien Library does not, Oldham said.
For now, the library will not accept those donated books and will continue to run its “honesty box” downstairs—a book buying system downstairs that asks those interested in a purchase to leave money for those items.
Anyone interested in learning more about what’s needed to run the New Canaan Library book sale may contact Lisa Oldham at loldham@newcanaanlibrary.org.