Saturday
December 13

9 am - 2 pm
Bargain Book Sale
You'll find many wonderful books at our bargain sale in room E5 at Cubberley, which is quite near our main booksale room.  The room is so full with books that you'll find many more on tables in the covered walkways nearby.  See the map for the exact location of the room.  All children's books are just 25 cents each, paperbacks are 50 cents, and hardcovers are $1.00.

2 pm - 4 pm
Bargain Room $5 a Bag Sale
After 2 pm, all bargain book books are sold by the bag at room E5.  You can fill as many grocery bags as you want at $5 each.  We supply the grocery bags.

11 am - 4 pm
Regular Sale
Find the perfect gifts among the 40,000 books in our regular book room, with prices way below what used book stores charge.  Paperbacks are 50 cents and up, and hardcovers are $1.00 and up.  Featured sales books for December include: 

4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto
Near the northwest end of the Cubberley Community Center

Room location

There will be no further sales at Terman.

The Palo Alto City Council voted unanimously in November to make the libraries a separate city department rather than part of the Community Services Department.  This means that the libraries now report directly to City Manager Frank Benest and are on an equal footing with other city departments, such as Fire, Police, and Public Works.  The Friends of the Palo Alto Library are "grateful, delighted, and enthusiastic" about the change.

The voting is over and the book selected by the community for the Silicon Valley Reads program in early 2004 is Ray Bradbury's classic tale of censorship, Fahrenheit 451.  Written 50 years ago, The Nation magazine calls the novel, "one of the most brilliant ever jobs of social satire."  To participate in the program, read the book this month or next and then join the community discussions in February 2004.  Learn more about the Silicon Valley Reads program.  Check out a copy of Fahrenheit 451 from the Palo Alto Library or purchase one from Amazon.com (by using this link, Amazon.com will donate to the Friends 15% of your discounted purchase price).

If you've ever come to the booksale before 11 am, you know how long the pre-opening line to our main booksale room gets.  Some people come hours early just to be sure to have a good spot.  To ease this problem, we're going to hand out numbers at the door to the sale room so that you can go off to the bargain book sale room or elsewhere and then return a little before 11 am to claim your place in line.  Numbers will be available beginning at 8 am on the morning of the sale.

There are many like-new books at our sale that make great holiday gifts, plus lots of games and puzzles.  Our $5 gift certificates are fast and easy stocking stuffers too.  If you aim to be one of the 11 pipers piping this season, we have a Bundy flute with case for just $150.  A  professional flute teacher has tested the flute and its pads are in good shape.

With all the great book bargains you'll find at our sale, you may need to clear off your shelves of other books you don't need anymore.  Please consider donating those books to us.  Not only will this help raise more money for improvements to our libraries, but the booksale puts approximately 200,000 books back into circulation each year, meaning someone else gets to read the books too.  You can easily donate books to us by dropping them off (one box/bag at a time) at any Palo Alto library or by bringing them with you to our book sale or to the sale room at other hours.  Your donations of used books are tax-deductible up to the full extent allowable by law.

Here's a little holiday fun: see how many of the following facts about our book sale you get right:

The Children's Library Repair and Expansion project is getting closer and closer to reaching its 2003 target of raising a little over $2 million.  We still have another $115,000 to raise to qualify for all the matching funds.  Please help by making your tax-deductible donation now.  Donations of all sizes are very welcome.  For $250, you can honor or memorialize someone with an inscribed brick in the wall in the Secret Garden behind the library.  The bricks allow you to write two lines, each with up to 20 capital letters,  spaces, and punctuation.  Some sample inscriptions:

JOHN, MARY, BETH
AND TOM SMITH

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
SUSAN JONES

Fill in this form to see if your own inscription fits:

 How to make your donation and other naming opportunities.

If you donate money for an ornament from the "giving tree" in the lobby of Palo Alto's Borel Bank & Trust Co., the funds will go to the Friends of the Palo Alto Library.  "Each year we choose a non-profit organization to receive funds from our tree, and this year we selected the Friends of the Library," said Yohko Fick of Borel Bank.  The giving tree is a five-year tradition for the bank.  The $20 giving tree donations are tax-deductible.  Borel Bank is located in downtown Palo Alto at 245 Lytton Ave., Suite 175 and is open from 9 am to 4 pm Mondays through Fridays.