Typical Night at the Library

I pulled into the parking lot at the library last night, and had a hard time finding a space. That’s good – mean’s they’re busy and more likely to generate sales for the Used Book Store.

I walked in and looked at our downstairs shelves. We keep the children’s books closer to the circulation desk with an assortment of books for adults. The people traffic is better down there, but we can’t keep an eye on the space so it gets messy sometimes. Also, people have to go back upstairs to pay for any books they choose to purchase. I spent a minute straightening up the shelves and then went upstairs.

The first things I do upon arriving at the desk are booting up the computer and getting a box of new donations from the back closet. There are always two or three piles of boxes, each about four feet high, filled with books.

When I logged in to our Amazon account, I saw that two books had sold online. I listed one myself and knew right where to find it. The other was in the closet. We have had trouble in the past with listed books disappearing, so I set them aside for our director to mail on Friday.

Going through donations is like Christmas for me. A couple of weeks ago, I found a hardcover copy of The Poe Shadow, written by Matthew Pearl, the guy who wrote The Dante Club. A book that I wanted to read, but not enough to pay retail for it. So when we had a copy that Amazon vendors are selling for a penny, I bought it straight away. I mentioned that last week I listed a strange book for $125 – that was exciting. And sometimes a “classic” from my childhood comes by – you know, like Miss Nelson is Missing.

Here was the odd thing about last night – I had actual in-store customers interrupting me! If I do $10 in sales on a 3-hour Thursday night shift, I consider it a good day. Last night was $14.25. And I didn’t buy anything!

I went through three boxes of donations and five books were worth listing. Not bad. I wonder what the Friday morning shift thinks each day when they see these huge piles of books on the floor that say “To be shelved”. Do they hate me?