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The Wonderful World of Donations

You wouldn’t believe the wide variety of donated books that the Friends of the Library devoted volunteers take in every Saturday. (More about volunteers and textbooks later) The list of categories we sort books into was developed over 7 years of donations and reflects this diversity: Non-Fiction; the Biz; Self-Help; Biography; Cooking; Crafts, Decorating & Gardening; Travel; Reference; art & Music; Foreign Language; Humor; Judaica; Fiction, Mystery, Sci/Fi/Fantasy & Romance, all in their formats-hardback, paperback and softback; Plays & Poetry; Classics; Children’s, including picture books, readers and chapter books, board books, teen fiction, & non-fiction; Old Books; Specially-priced Books including coffee table books; Very Recent Fiction, Exp:2007-08.
From time to time we also put out smaller special categories, such as: Large Print; Puzzles & Games; Cats, Dogs and other Animals; books on Collecting (once we had a book on all varieties of Levis!) ; Seasonal, which comprises Christmas, Valentines Day, St Patrick’s Cay, Mothers’ & Fathers’ Day and our ever popular Halloween group that includes Tarot
Dream Analysis as well as Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin.
The Biz is a section particular to our corner of the Valley, books on movie-making, TV & screen writing, film guides, bios of celebrities, as well as stage craft & acting. Self-Help/Life Style is a mélange of everything you might need in life: feng shui; baby-naming, how to get or lose a boyfriend; diets & dieting; health books on arthritis, fibromyalgia, stress & diabetes; wedding planning; finding a job; dress for success, and finally getting along with your two year old, teenager or husband!
Non-Fiction is a wonderful grab-bag of history, politics, anthropology, philosophy, investing, education, astronomy & spacecraft, religious thought-you really have to look is all over. Most books have a definite place to go but some generate much discussion. Is it a classic or just an old book? Do Harry Potter & C.S. Lewis belong in Fantasy or Children’s? Where do you put “Great Jewish Jokes”-in Humor or Judaism? It really comes down to where the book will sell.
We do have some “Please Don’t Donate” categories (almost impossible to sell). #1. Encyclopedias- made obsolete by the internet; #2 Magazines except for special interest ones such as Directors Cinematographers; #3 Textbooks-formerly accepted but no longer as we are no longer able to pass them on to L.A.C.C. Books that don’t sell get put on the free cart in our Library’s lobby.
Overall I think you can see that we have a group of book lovers doing the sorting and selling of our donated books, who care about putting the book and its’ potential owner together. Our ultimate goal is to earn money to augment our Studio City Branch Library’s budget and to buy things that the budget won’t cover. But at book’s end, I think we just enjoy doing this-sorting the books and finding new owners for them. And having some fun  April Howard ..............end

The Marines could use a few good men and we, the Friends, could use a few more volunteers, since we now depend on the same people to do a lot of the work. Our main focus is the monthly booksale and the preparation for it, all which offers several areas of activity for the volunteer. You can choose and fit it into your own schedule. What we do is:
1.Accept and sort book donations every Saturday 10 am to 2 pm.
2.Set up for the Book Sale on the Friday just before, 10 am to 2 pm.
3.Help at the Sale (last Saturday of the month) which goes from 9 am to 2 pm                     4.Break down the sale and pack up the unsold books, put them in storage room
It is not necessary to do everything. Make a choice and go for it. Better yet, come by and see what goes on. Some of this is hard work but the plusses include working with nice people (us!), meeting the public and talking about books, and just being exposed to lots & lots of books. Why not inquire & talk to us. Call April Howard at (818) 763-8668 or Jane Fahey at (818) 260-0624

Bookplate Program:

The Donation Bookplates are placed in all the books, audio tapes and CD’S that the Friends buy for the library. You too can honor or commemorate someone special with our Celebrate the Day program by buying a $10 Bookplate that we place in a selected book for you. Information about this program is available on our Bookplate page or call April Howard at (818) 763-8668

Enjoy our Library, booksales, special events and keep those wonderful book donations coming!

Finally, we value our members' support and hope it will continue. One way you can help is to serve on our Board; there are several openings. Being part of the decision making process is fun and rewarding. Leave your name at the reference desk and join the next board meeting on the first Saturday of the month at 10 A.M. in the Library meeting room.