Nora,

I can sure understand why you are upset. The tabloid publisher has no idea how a library is run.

In our town library which is comparable to yours the public copy machines are run the same way as Warehams.

Also in our library the book sale has always worked exactly as you describe.

The record keeping of all book purchases and all circulated materials inventory  is thorough, strict and redundant.

"Many of those books were not "used," however. They came off the selves (sic) at the Wareham Free Library, many just purchased with money from the library budget. To cover her tracks, Pillsbury reordered those books in the next budget cycle. She then simply stopped keeping inventory records of individual books purchased with taxpayer money by the library."

Just how much did these alleged new books from the shelves sell for? In the library in our town all hardbound books sell for $2.00, paperbacks for $1.00. Many libraries have a preview night for the Friends where they can really get bargains being the first to review the many boxes of books and grab the pick of the crop.


So we have under the table paybacks from donations, nickels and dimes from copy machines, and now a librarian selling almost new books for a tenth their cost...

If libraries were such a scheme-worthy way to launder money it seems to me we'd have heard of them being used in this way elsewhere.

urneighbor, you are right about the prices on the book sales.

Most hardcovers go for $1.

Better quality and popular author hardcovers go for $2.

Some few go for $3 or $4. A rare book on an interesting topic (like an art book) goes for $5.

Most paperbacks sell for 25 cents.

Better quality or popular paperbacks go for $1.

All children's books are 25 cents.

I've hauled a lot of books over the years and have had the back aches to prove it. But the cause was good and that made all the difference.

Thanks for weighing in on what other libraries do. Anyone who knows anything about how libraries are run would fall over laughing at the allegations made in the tabloid!!!

P-Span, if we charged $1,000,000 per piece of bubblegum, we'd only have to sell three pieces to hit the money laundering amount!!  Actually, bubble gum, food and drink is a no-no in libraries in case of damage to those "hot" books!

Thanks all for cheering me up. Some days are harder than others.

Nora (and urneighbor), are they still doing those book sales...sounds like a bargain. I had no idea..If so, let us know when..I have a few I could donate..and get some good stuff cheap too!

P-SPAN
TAKEBACKWAREHAM

"There are brand new books at the Book Sale !!   Sound the alarm!    Call the Cops ! Red Alert ! May Day !"

Wanna hear  somethin' funny?     .....

John Wylde LIVED for Gateman Baseball.   We both joked about our "depressions" when the season ended. "How are we going to get through the winter!?", we'd  ask each other...

Part of John's survival plan was reading......Serious, all day long  reading ....Almost a book-a day reading. Combine that with a guy who hated the small print of paperbacks, and  who had a few coins left over after he'd bought his groceries, and you have the reason why there  are...or maybe it's "used to be" ...books that appear to be "new" at the WFL book sales.  He devoured the best  new books about world problems; he loved good historical fiction; he was a Civil War scholar; and there 's no one i'Ve ever met who was as up-to-date on the  latest works of the best Murder Mystery writers of the world.

John Wylde dealt with this wholesome  winter therapy  predictably. To buy a hard cover book that you are only going to read once  and then save it might make sense for someone who reads, say 20 hard covers a year., but here's guy who was surpassing that every month!    John's practical and generous nature made him pass them on so that he didn't have to store them and so that they could be read by others..

There are very few people in the world who could turn that into a  three million dollar scandal.....but we've got 'em folks! 

Perhaps this an appropriate time to interject that our BOS  officials do not "darken the door" of WFL....Not only do they not read the stuff that comes in their weekly packets....they don't read...period !

I'll "hit" you again with that great Mark Twain line.....roll it around a bit before you swallow it to get the full flavor: "A person who won't read has no advantage over someone who can't read."

Last edited by Dick Wheeler (2009-11-16 19:02:42)

P-Span -

Bubble gum machines in a library, now THAT would be a scandal.

Next thing your tabloid will headline is "Outer space alien corpses hidden in library sub-basement vault".

Dick,
I wasn't going to mention John Wylde, but since you did I can tell you that the tech. services librarian would get John's donations of brand new books when he finished reading them. The Friends rarely got to put his books in the sale unless there were already copies in the system!!

They were always hard covers and he had a love of mysteries. Even near the end when he was very ill, he made it to the library when we had Archer Mayor, the Brattleboro VT mystery writer in as a guest speaker. The author autographed his copy.

Almost all of his donations went directly into the collection and onto the shelves for the citizens of Wareham to borrow from the library. That saved the library money and freed up the book budget to buy more books. It was a great system. We all miss John who was one of this town's greatest philanthropists and supporters who was treated badly by this BoS and by the local tabloid writer over Spillane field.

And Priscilla is right. For most of the time 1995-2005, the Friends only did the annual book sale in July. It was only in the last few years that we did them monthly.  Just another bit of TRUTH to disprove the Friends book sale as part of the money laundering scheme.