This story was originally published in Coast Reporter's winter edition of Coast Life magazine.
When someone reminds you there’s a book faire coming up at the Sechelt Public Library, they could be suggesting one of two things: Either you should start getting rid of the ridiculous number of books you have piled up everywhere, or you might want to go get some more.
Book Faire has indeed become a popular institution on the Sunshine Coast. After more than 12 years of nearly monthly, Friday-to-Sunday sales at the library’s combined lobby/committee room, the Faire has a reputation for accepting donations only of lightly used books. They’ll then be turned around and sold for up to $2.50 ($1 for pocketbooks), or five hardcovers for $10. To Coasters, that’s irresistible.
“The Sunshine Coast is addicted to books,” said Sandra Friedman, co-chair of Friends of the Sechelt Public Library (FSPL), which runs Book Faire. “People here feel that if you don’t have a pile of books under your bed or beside it, then you feel very insecure. So, we sell books.”
Do they ever. Many customers walk out with a literal armload. Sales revenue over three days can often total $1,000 to $2,000. And, despite the challenges of the pandemic years and a grievous flood at its venue last winter, Book Faire has generated a whopping $230,000 since 2012. All funds, except for storage-locker and insurance expenses, go to the library, and that has made an enormous difference.
“The Friends of Library were integral to our survival when we weren't funded adequately,” Sechelt Public Library Director Leianne Emery said in an interview. “Now they’re integral to keeping it beautiful, and warm, and inviting and professional. I don’t take lightly what they do for us.”
Emery noted the library has three primary funders, the District of Sechelt, the Sunshine Coast Regional District, and the shíshálh First Nation.
“But that funding is for operations only,” Emery said. “If we need a new shelf, new chairs, new computers, those are capital assets, and I don’t have any budget for any of that. If I can’t find the money from a grant—and we apply for lots—I can’t buy them. This library would not look anywhere nearly this beautiful if the Friends had not contributed what they have over the years.”
Book Faire income has paid for everything from DVDs and board games for a few hundred dollars to more than $18,000 for three rolling magazine-storage shelves, and more than $26,000 for two, state-of-the-art book-checkout machines. Thousands more have been spent on durable and comfortable easy chairs. Subtle but costly improvements like bookcase bottom shelves that are sloped upwards also ease and enhance the library user-experience.
“Things are expensive,” said Emery. “Without [Book Faire] funding, we just don’t have the same kind of library.”
Friends of the Sechelt Public Library was founded in 1997 to develop ways to help fill those budget gaps. The society ran some small-scale projects like raffles and one-day book sales, but by 2012, Friedman and Gillian Smith, now FSPL co-chairs, knew they had to up their fundraising game.
“The sale eventually evolved into the three days on a weekend, monthly, and twice a month in the summer,” Smith said. “We don’t do December, and sometimes not January.”
In 2024, for the first time since it began, there also was no Book Faire in February due to a calamitous mid-January water leak that rained down from the District of Sechelt Municipal Office on the floors above. “The whole front half of the library was destroyed,” Emery said.
Damage was so extensive that the library had to close completely for nearly six months, until early July. Funds from Book Faires would be needed more than ever, but the sales could not be based in the library lobby. So, except for one weekend at the Sechelt Activity Centre, Book Faire moved a block away to the Seaside Centre on Teredo St. for half of 2024. It didn’t return to its library home this year until September.
'Luggers,' 'Setter-uppers' and 'smooshers'
Wherever its venue, Book Faire runs smoothly thanks to a volunteer corps who manage all the merchandise, which is stored in hundreds of cardboard boxes containing thousands upon thousands of books. About a dozen helpers contribute hours as “luggers,” “setter-uppers,” “smooshers,” or “floorwalkers.” That is, they take on the tasks of lugging the boxes to the library from the Faire’s Sechelt storage lockers, setting up the boxes by category on dozens of tables, and then “smooshing” them (squeezing them efficiently) into their boxes—and ensuring each book ends up in the right box.
“We can make mistakes,” said Friedman. “Somebody will put Chicken Soup for the Soul in with the cookbooks. It happens.”
The floorwalkers answer questions, help keep things tidy and do more smooshing to accommodate yet more books dropped off at the donations table. The volunteers at that station are the gatekeepers charged with maintaining Book Faire’s reputation for quality. You don’t get to donate just any book. Certainly, no book that is “worn, torn, underlined, highlighted, dusty, dirty, moldy or in otherwise poor condition,” according to FSPL’s page on the library website. No computer books or manuals, no Readers’ Digest condensed books, no textbooks, no encyclopedias. The donations table volunteers are cheerful but firm.
“It’s taken a long time to train our people to say, ‘No, we’re not taking this,’ Friedman said.
Adds Smith: “I couldn’t do the donation table, because I’d be too willing to take everything. People are being good enough to give to their books away and we can’t insult them. But at the same time, those who come to buy know the books on our tables are going to be in darn good shape.”
The library website will list dates for 2025 Book Faires. They’re open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, and Sundays 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. (Donations are not accepted on Sundays.)
“There have been some very frugal years here,” Emery said. “And the ‘Friends’ have been a saviour.”
