Saturday
November 10
10 am - 4 pm
Main Room Opening
9 am for life members
10 am for other members
11 am for non-members

Sunday
November 11
1 pm - 4 pm

Featured topics for November:

4000 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto
Northwest corner of the Cubberley Community Center

Map
More information on the sales
Donate your old books
 
All proceeds go to help Palo Alto libraries.

Main Book Room Sale
In our Main Room, prices are way below what used book stores charge. Paperbacks are 50 cents and up, and hardcovers are $1 and up.  Numbered tickets for the Main Room are given out beginning at 8 am on Saturday.  These reserve your place in the line that forms before the 10 am opening for members.
 
Children's Books in K6
Room K6 in the K wing (see map) is entirely filled with children's books and toys.  You'll find picture books, school age fiction, award winners, non-English titles, and books for parents and teachers, many for under $1.  This room and the Bargain Room open at 10 am on Saturday.
 
Bargain Books in K7
Next door in K7 is the Bargain Room, where paperbacks are 50 cents, hardcovers are $1, and children's books are just 25 cents each.  The room also contains many LP records and 78s at $1 each.  All items are half off after 12:30 pm on Saturday and all day on Sunday.  On Sunday, you can also buy grocery bags in the Bargain Room for $5 and fill them with books.

This month's booksale is the once-a-year chance for members of the Friends of the Palo Alto Library to be admitted early to the Main Room and enjoy some extra time to browse and shop.  Life members and their spouses get in at 9 am and can purchase up to 50 books during that hour.  At 10 am, the rest of our members are admitted and everyone can buy the usual 12 books at a time.  At 11 am, non-members are admitted.  The limit on purchasing 12 books at a time expires at noon.

Tickets for early arrivers are handled differently this month.  The tickets given out are for the 10 am line at the Main Room, since most people who come early are members of the Friends.  Each member will get just one ticket, although members at the $25 through $250 levels may bring in their families, consisting of one or two adults and children.  There are no tickets for the 11 am line. 
 
All other hours at this weekend's sale are the same as usual: the Bargain and Children's Room are open from 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday and all rooms are open on Sunday from 1 to 4 pm.
 
Regular membership in the Friends is only $15 ($10 for students and seniors, $25 for families) and is tax-deductible.  Members also receive a discount coupon by mail for the sale, discounts at Books Inc. at the Stanford Shopping Center, and eligibility for the Stanford Federal Credit Union.  If you're not a member, avoid delay at the sale by joining online right now.

Thanks to the great generosity of Professor Ronald Hilton's family, this sale features more from his extensive collection of Russian literature, history, biography, government, and economics.  Spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, the books cover the tsars, communism, Eastern Europe, and more.  Look for the bulk of the collection on two large tables near cooking and art in the Main Room while books written in Russian are in the Main Room's foreign language section.  See preview pictures of the books.

Yes, it's already time for Christmas, Hanukah, and Kwanzaa shopping.  We've put our collection of hundreds of Christmas books and other items on the south wall in the Main Room (across from the cashiers) for this weekend's sale.  All of our Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and children's Christmas materials are located in the Children's Room.

Preview many of the tens of thousands of books offered at this weekend's sale by viewing our shelf pictures.

Library technologist, trainer, and author Michael Porter will speak November 8 from 7–9 pm on how public libraries use new digital tools to build communities.  His free presentation, entitled Your Library’s Future Has Changed: Technology, Content and Community, will look at the web sites of innovative libraries that are using social networking tools and creative implementation to provide access to information and create connections in their communities.
 
Michael Porter is Community Associate for WebJunction, an organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to assist libraries and cultural organizations in meeting their objectives through the effective use of web-based technologies. His professional focus is on technology, community, and training. He co-authors the "Internet Spotlight" column in Public Libraries magazine and is writing a book about effective electronic communities.
 
Porter's talk will be at the City Council chambers at 250 Hamilton Avenue.  It is hosted by the Palo Alto City Library, which is gearing up to develop a library technology plan by early 2008, and sponsored by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library. See Porter's blog.

Palo Alto libraries are more popular than ever.  In the recent 2006-2007 fiscal year, over 1.4 million items were checked out from the four open branches, up approximately 11% from the prior year.
 
With the Children's Library closed throughout the fiscal year, the other branches in North Palo Alto saw considerable increases in circulation and visits.  The Downtown Library rose the most: 8% more visitors and 35% more items checked out.  The Main Library had 5% more visitors and checked out 29% more items, while the College Terrace branch saw 8% more visitors and 20% higher circulation.  Least affected was the Mitchell Park branch, with just 2% more visits and 15% higher circulation.  Overall visits were down by 3%, due no doubt to having one fewer library open.
 
Technology continues to impact the library.  Remote catalog searches rose 27% to approximately 1.3 million, or almost one per item checked out.  Patrons placed about 209,000 holds, up 15% from the year before.  Online database logins climbed 24%, while Internet sessions in the library increased by 4%.  Higher Internet usage may explain the 6% drop in reference and where-do-I-find questions from patrons to about 116,000 annually.
 
The library added over 22,000 items during 2006-07 to its collection.  After weeding older materials out, the collection grew by about 4% to about 271,000 books, DVDs, CDs, and other items as of June 2007.  The Mitchell Park and Main libraries saw their collections grow 5% and 3% respectively, while the collections at the smaller branches shrank slightly.  DVDs, CDs, and other media items represented about 27% of the year's acquisitions.
 
During the year, the library hosted 580 programs, up 3% from the year before, with 52 attendees each on average.  The number of people volunteering in the libraries rose by 61% to 180, while the total hours they volunteered held steady at about 5,900.
 
See the full statistics.

Join Palo Alto and all Silicon Valley in reading and attending events surrounding Bo Caldwell's bestselling first novel, The Distant Land of My Father.  The Washington Post Book World says, "This is a novel for old China hands, new China hands - and everyone who has ever felt himself in exile from any beloved place or time that can never return."  The many discussions and events will take place throughout February 2008.  Get a head start and check out a copy of the novel from the Palo Alto Library.
 
This is the sixth year of the Silicon Valley Reads program, which annually selects a book for county-wide discussion.  Silicon Valley Reads website.  Palo Alto Reads website.