Saturday
March 8
10 am - 4 pm
Main Room opens at 11 am

Sunday
March 9
1 pm - 4 pm

Featured topics for March:

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 11 am opening.  You may pick up a ticket for yourself and for one other person.
 
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.

Come see all the great gardening books at this weekend's sale, thanks to a huge donation from Palo Alto's Gamble Gardens plus our regular donors.  In the Main Room, you'll find a full display table of garden books, seven extra shelves on the west wall, and the entire regular Gardening section.  Our Bargain Room also has even more gardening books at 50 cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardcovers.

We will continue this month allowing only 185 customers into the Main Room at a time.  On Saturday, March 8, customers will be originally admitted in the order of their numbered tickets that are given out from 8 to 11 am.  Once inside, customers may take only 12 books off of shelves, after which they should purchase these and exit via the east door.  They may then join at the end of any remaining line at the north door and reenter in that order.  The limitation of 12 books at a time will continue past noon if a line remains outside.
 
When picking up numbered tickets, please note that you can take one for yourself and one other person.
 
We regret any inconvenience that may be caused by adjusting to these changes.  We hope you will understand it is for health and safety and arises from our severe space limitation.  We wish to thank everyone for their patience.

 
Preview our Shelves

Get a head start on this weekend's sale with our many shelf preview pictures from many different sections of our Main Room.

Palo Alto's City Council voted 7 to 2 on February 11 to ask voters to support approximately $80 million of proposed library improvements with a bond likely to be on the November 2008 ballot.  The project entails replacing the existing Mitchell Park Library and Community Center with a single 51,000 square foot building at the same site, remodeling and somewhat enlarging the Main Library, and reconfiguring and updating the Downtown Library.  See proposed designs on our website.  Palo Alto's other two branch facilities will not be affected by the bond measure, as the Children's Library was updated last year and major repairs for the College Terrace branch are already being planned.
 
The two councilmembers in the minority also supported the library plans, but were unhappy funding a replacement public safety building via reduced city services and possible new revenues.  The majority felt that voters will not support the public service building and thus other city revenues need to be used.  Neither project received 2/3 support in polling last year, which is the level required for bond passage.  See recent coverage in the Palo Alto Weekly and Palo Alto Daily News.
 
The city is also undertaking an approximately $65,000 outreach campaign to educate the public about the library bond measure, using videos, handouts, online materials, and meetings.  See Palo Alto Weekly article.

Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online, will address parents’ concerns about online safety, cyberbullying and other ways technology affects kids at a free event at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 12 at Palo Alto High School's Haymarket Theater at 50 Embarcadero Road.  This program is funded by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library and cosponsored by the library, the Palo Alto Unified School District, the Palo Alto Council of PTAs, and the Palo Alto Drug Alcohol Community Collaborative.

 
Apply for a Palo Alto Library Card Online

Any resident of California is eligible for a Palo Alto library card, which gives you access to great online resources and the largest book collection in California among similar-sized cities.  Start your application today on the library's website.

 
Free Classes at the Library

Discover new ways to find useful information through library and other resources at free presentations over the next months.  All talks will be held from 10:30 am to noon at the Main Library, 1213 Newell Road.  Reserve a spot online.  Upcoming topics are:
 
March 12: The Historic New York Times: Searching a Century of News This online resource gives you full image and text of every page of the New York Times from its first issue in 1861 through 2004, searchable by keyword. Find out what happened the day you were born or trace history as it unrolled day by day.  Palo Alto access to the historic New York Times is funded by a Cable Co-op Legacy Grant through the Friends of the Palo Alto Library.
 
April 9: Health Matters: Online Tools for Medical Information
 
May 14: Genealogy Resources @ The Library (back by popular demand)
 
June 11: Traveling? Learn the Secrets of Researching Your Destination