The Art of Book Sorting
Thoughts from a sorting room volunteer:
This morning the tables in the sorting room were piled high with donations.
As we worked diligently to get them all sorted into the correct boxes , the question was posed: “ I wonder if people understand what we do here”? Well, be prepared to be amazed!
Every single item that is donated is scrutinized. We want to provide our customers with the best quality possible.
First the book has to “smell “ test. We do not keep anything that is musty , moldy ,or smells like smoke. Next, we make sure the book is in good condition. We look for markings or underlining, torn pages, coffee stains, a loose spine, or a well-worn cover.
We flip through the pages. You would be surprised at the many treasures that have been found by our volunteers. Things like bookmarks, airline boarding passes, sweet greeting cards, photographs, recipes, and even a rosary.
Now it is time to consider what category the book belongs. We have approximately 60 different categories that books are sorted into. To make this even more challenging, many categories have copyright dates we use as guidelines. This might seem to be a simple process but we must factor in sorter interpretation. Fiction? Mystery? Teen? And oftentimes there is more than one correct spot for the item.
Some of the donations fall into our FINE AND RARE category and are placed in the bins for our research team to determine their worth. They spend hours determining if the item has value beyond our basic sale prices. Special items will be priced accordingly and set aside for sale. Also, textbooks are separated. We have another team that researches these donations and sells them separately.
We do not sell magazines but we are happy to put them on the FREE book shelf in the hallway for community members to take and enjoy. Also, if a soft cover book that is well loved (and worn) or too old to fit into our categories it is put on our free shelf in the hallway for our all to enjoy.
We accept and love puzzles and games as long as all the pieces are intact. Puzzle pieces are all bagged in the boxes so pieces don’t get lost .
When a category box is filled it is closed and stored in the back of the room on our “wall”. Every closed box is marked off on our inventory chart . This information is used to plan the layout of the booksale.
Many volunteer hands and many hours of organization go into handling the daily donations and preparing them for the book sale. It is a labor of love for us and we are always thrilled by the response from our community members who support our book sales. The Friends of the Pittsford Community Library are so happy to be able to use the book sale proceeds to to support the Pittsford Library’s “wish list” of projects that enhance the experience of our community members.
