The Marshall Public Library 2009 Book Sale

This morning Pocatello's Marshall Public Library held their semi-annual (I think they may hold it 2 or 3 times a year, I'm not sure) Used Book Sale. I've always attended this when possible, as its always a great chance to pick up some good authors and try some new stuff, as well as find reader preview copies and older, mid 60s books. This year, they held a pre-sale the night before, to coincide with Old Town's First Friday celebrations, and then the main sale portion began at 9am on Saturday. The Friday portion was very under advertised, only receiving a small notice in the paper a few days previously, but the Saturday sale had a nice banner up, and when I arrived after my shift there were around a half dozen people waiting in line to get in, around 20 minutes early.

Huddled together for warmth, we chatted a bit and most of them were unaware of the Friday sale. I missed it because I had to work that night, so I was trying to sleep at home, but there had always been a plethora of good books at the sale, so we weren't too concerned. Turns out we should have been. Friday night, a gentleman that had recently opened his own used book store in the area somewhere, walked in within the first few minutes, and plucked up the entire collection of boxes of romance, sci-fi, mystery and fiction, and purchased all of them, spending over a hundred dollars on $.25 books, and utterly clearing out their entire selection of books. The library held none in reserve for Saturday, so we walked into a collection of old hardbacks, some self help books from the 70s, and oddly, a couple of travel guides for Illinois from 2001. I eventually found a couple of hardbacks that looked interesting, and snagged a couple of 60s detective paperbacks, but I, along with the rest of the people I saw there were thoroughly disappointed in their sale. I'm shocked that they didn't impose a limit or hold some of the selection back for the second day.

FAIL.

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