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Wanted: Used books

Once a year the Whistler Public Library has a huge book sale. This year we will be selling used paperbacks and hardcovers on Saturday, August 2 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m in front of the IGA in Marketplace.

Once a year the Whistler Public Library has a huge book sale. This year we will be selling used paperbacks and hardcovers on Saturday, August 2 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m in front of the IGA in Marketplace.

There will be adult books as well as children’s novels and picture books, as well as videos and compact discs. The prices will be unbeatable — by donation!

If you have any paperbacks you would like to donate, please bring them to the Library before the sale or to the IGA on the day of the sale. We are looking for books in reasonably good condition; clean, all pages intact, and published in the last 10 years.

We will accept hardcover novels, however old university texts – you know, the ones we hang on to for about 20 years and finally decide that we will NEVER look at again! –, copies of Europe on $5 a day or dusty old novels are kindly declined.

The sale will also include books which have been withdrawn from the library’s collection for various reasons.

Using the gardening metaphors, the librarian is a gardener who must regularly "weed" the collection. Weeding is equally important as selection. It is the function of the small public library, not to conserve books in permanent collections, but to exploit material to the best of its ability by means of a small, highly functional collection. We withdraw books with poor content, which are no longer useful or in poor physical condition.

The funds raised from the sale will go towards purchasing new books. The Library attempts to always purchase the titles on the "Bestseller" lists, with special attention to works by Canadian authors. About 75 per cent of the adult books and about 95 per cent of children’s books in the Library are selected by reading reviews.

The unsold books will be taken either to the Re-Use it Centre or to the municipal landfill site.