Good news: After a two-year absence, the Times Colonist book sale is back on.
Pandemic willing, of course.
Also, does anyone know where we can find 400 folding tables?
If you’re a regular TC reader, you know about the book drive. It has operated in the same way every year since its inception in 1998: Good-quality used books donated by readers at a weekend drive-through drop-off are sorted by volunteers and then sold to the public at a two-day sale.
Not only is it a great deal for book buyers (traditionally, the lineup to get in is longer than the ones at Walmart during the Great Toilet Paper Panic) but all the money goes to literacy-related programs on Vancouver Island. A total of $6 million has been raised and distributed so far.
Alas, COVID kiboshed the 2020 and 2021 sales. Bummer.
Happily, the sun is starting to break through again, coaxing dormant events out of hibernation. The book sale is among them. The drive-through drop-off will take place April 30 and May 1 at the Victoria Curling Club at 1952 Quadra St. The sale will be two weeks later, at the same location, on the weekend of May 14 and 15.
Resurrecting it will take a bit of doing. It’s not easy to lurch back to life, Lazarus-like, after two years in a COVID-induced coma. Indeed, organizers are keeping their fingers crossed that the pandemic will trend in the right direction.
In any case, all provincial health orders in effect at the time will be followed, whether that means wearing a mask, showing proof of vaccination before entry or not crawling over strangers to get at the copy of How To Win Friends & Influence People that you spotted across the table.
The logistics of staging the drive could be interesting. Take, for example, the tables on which the books are displayed. Organizers usually borrow 400 of them from the military, rec centres, schools and other good-hearted supporters for the duration of the book drive.
Unfortunately, Victoria’s table supply dwindled during the pandemic, meaning the hunt is on for more. If you happen to be sitting on a stash that you’d be willing to let go for a month, please contact Ed Kennedy at [email protected].
Tables aren’t the only thing that could be in short supply. The book sale’s most vital asset is the small army of volunteers, most of whom have no connection to the newspaper, who cheerfully do all the sorting and not so cheerfully do all the heavy lifting.
Even before the pandemic, some of them were getting long in the tooth (though they were still more useful than those Times Colonist desk jockeys who couldn’t heft anything heavier than one pint without making noises more commonly associated with reproduction).
After two years on the sidelines, it’s uncertain how many volunteers will still be willing or able to re-enter the game. What’s really needed is an infusion of people with strong backs. If that’s you, or if you have a healthy, strapping child you don’t particularly like, please consider the idea.
Otherwise, what’s really needed will be donations of good-quality books on that collection weekend at the end of April. No encyclopedias, textbooks, magazines, medical books, outdated reference works, Reader’s Digest condensed books or National Geographics, please.
Also, the sorters will chuck out anything dog-eared, coffee-stained or in poor condition (and I still have the bruises to prove it). Sorry, there’s nowhere to drop off, or store, donated books in advance.
One final note: Even without sales in 2020 and 2021, community support allowed the Times Colonist Literacy Society to keep money flowing to those literacy programs that depend on it, pandemic or not.
Scaled-down drop-offs in each of the past two summers saw Russell Books not only buy all the donated books sight unseen, but handle the sorting, plus the disposal of books not suitable for sale.
Cheques came in from individual readers and supporters ranging from Golf For Kids to Heirloom Linens. The provincial government funnelled matching funds through Decoda Literacy Solutions.
Profound thanks to all of them. With everything going on (or not) in the past two years, it would have been easy to let the cause wither.
