Next Book Sale April 29 to May 2

The Spring Book Sale will be April 29 to May 2.

The sale starts on Thursday night at 5 pm. Those who live in Fairfax County will wonder about that because the Library Hours end at 6 pm since the first round of budget cuts went into effect last July. We got special permission to keep the book sale open until 9 pm even though library services will end at 6 pm. For the casual library patron, checking out books and asking questions of librarians and paying fines and using the library computers all ends at 6 pm. The building stays open for those of us buying and selling books. We do this so we can offer some evening hours for people working most office hours.

On Friday, April 30 and Saturday, May 1 the sale hours match the library hours. On Sunday, May 2, the sale will begin an hour before the library services start. The sale opens early in the hope of letting our buyers get here and find parking.

For those who have never been to our sale, I will tell you that the library lot fills up. I ask that you find a legal parking space because those parking tickets can just ruin a perfectly good day. On Thursday when we are especially busy, the police are here to ensure public safety and that includes enforcing no parking in the fire lanes.

For people who don't want to come to the sale but are in the habit of using the library for study or meeting space, the Thursday of the book sale and the Sunday of the book sale are two times you might want to arrange to study somewhere else. The book sale doesn't use the Quiet Study Room and about two other tables in the library. The book sale does use the meeting rooms and 90% of the tablespace. The noise level also grows with the number of shoppers so it is not a quiet place to study during the sale.