Music, Music , Music - we have had three volunteers working on boxes of cds for several days now. Our first step is to see if they are worth more than $5, if so then they do online. If not, are they in good condition - nice case, not scratched - $2.00 for the sale. The ones going online head to the library RTI DisChek Machine (we purchased for the library -$3,200). The machine checks for defects. Then on to the polishing machines, we have purchased several and also spendy. The ones for our sale that are in poor condition go through the polishing ones also. We are going to have a massiveamount of cds at our sale. Also the LPs have been coming in. Have some 78s that I'm not sure how to price.
Today, I've been working on maps. We have the bigger laminated ones from the library plus lots of little ones.
The boxes are piling up and we are on a great tract for an excellent sale.

Not sure on the de-smeller machine yet. The problem is you can only smell so many before you lose the ability to judge. We think it is doing a good job on the more porous books but time will tell.
Tons - literally -of donations and deletes have shown up this week. What an interesting batch of deletes we are getting, things to make the reference and history readers shell out their hard earned money. I especially liked the DK History of Rock and Roll . I think I'll put that out on our permanent sales shelves (Pass the welcome desk, take a right at the donut shop).
I am working on an hypothesize about the type and condition of the box versus the worth of the contents. Patrons do donate an amazing assortment of wonderful item but there is also a great deal of debris.
Our box counts keep rising, children are ahead as usual but I am surprised at how well we are doing in Spanish and Video - thank you to the patron who donated 400 very nice videos this week. We have already sold a few online. Who would have thought that Strategic Air Command with James Steward would sell for $23?
Happy Father's Day to all who are celebrating. My daughter in law is going to attempt creme brulee.

We have been blown away with donations these last few days, I think that people decided that it was never going to stop showering - raining and they might as well get their stuff out. My favorite label on the boxes this week was -garage shit. Did peek in to make sure it wasn't accurately labeled. Just a short time ago, all the boxes were off the floor and then wham! we are filled and heading to alternate storage. I can tell you that there will be masses of LPs at the next sale. Lots of classic and 40s-50s also. a couple boxes of gaming magazines showed up also. I told the donor that they would go to good homes.
In addition, boxes of great childens, history, and art have shown up in our room. We are pricing and boxing as fast as we can because we know that Shute Park Library will be sending over 10,000 items in the next few months. Wow!
We do like to take off the mylar covers, and also make sure the books are not falling apart - we will glue them back together, if we can. Also, a nice clean on the kids books is also called for.
Linda took home this weekend our new anti-smell machine, I'm anxious to hear and smell how it performed.

Sci-Fi was the winner, so far, this week. We just love it when boxes of sci-fi/fantasy come in. CDs are filling up our CD holders. We do need jewel cases, if anyone has any extra. We try to recase all the ex-library and on-line ones if they need it and since the library is getting most of their cds pre-packaged for library use, we no longer snag their new cases when they switch out to library cases.
I just ordered an Odor Free Villa 1000 to deal with the donated musty books and smoky ones too. We have our fingers crossed that this will work - figure one great book on-line will help pay for the machine. We should be taking it out for a spin next week.
Our box numbers have increased - 18 is the new total.
Permenant sale shelves are chock-full of great titles.

If you are a reader of Chinese, today was your day. A full box -35 lbs was taped shut.
We were also trying to get our backlog of books to go online whittled down. As usual something else came up.
Linda, our project oriented volunteer, decided today was a good day for upstairs organizing. It is amazing how much she can get done. For muscle, she brought in Joe, another one of the faithful.
A cart load of books came in late this afternoon and unfortunately, there was a musty odor coming from the box. We live in Oregon - don't leave boxes of books in your garage or basement. I decided to check to see if any were unodoriferous ones. A nice lot of art and childrens were in the boxes. I was innocently sniffing away - nose deep in the book when I realized the page I was on was of a reclining nude and it looked like I was sniffing her naughty parts. Annie was standing behind me - assistant sniffer. We both broke up laughing.
The sale shelves were stocked with some interesting books today - come check it out.

The permanent sale shelves were switched from Hard Back Fiction and Audiobooks on the last day of the sale back to normal. I started switching them back but was "let go" or made redundant, if you like the English term. A little thing like putting all the mass market paperback shelves in crooked.
Kathy marked the shelves so we won't have that problem again. She is also the queen of the alphabet and I consider myself to be alphabetically challenged. We have our fiction in order and by category- regular, mystery, sci-fi and romance.
Children and Non-fiction are pretty much by size. We added a shelf of magazines since they seen to be selling well.
We have good volunteers restocking regularly. Melinda is Monday and Wednesday and Betty is Friday.
On-line is doing well but we have almost caught up with donations and the weeded books. librarians weed their collections for different reasons, such as, not circulating, condition, newer information available, so if you are in the area and want to clean out your shelves come see us. Go to the Welcome Desk and they will call us.We have a nice hand truck and flatbed cart to help bring them in.
The dust has hardly settled but we already have about 10 boxes going to storage. The sale usually has between 400- 600 boxes - in categories and graded.

The police have come and taken away the stroller. I called Costco because there was a receipt in the stroller and they said they would call the member's number a tell them about the stroller.
In other news, we went 25% over last years total. How is that for cool. Thanks to the many great volunteer who worked their fingers to the bone. Actually, we all were talking about breaking nails.
Melinda was the one in the main room directing customers and trying to find books and sell them more. Annie was bringing in all the carts she was pricing, Kathy was carting too. Linda was also keeping up with our amazon on-line sales. And a host of others, Great job all.
Kathy, Annie disposed of our least favorite cash register today. Sorry you missed the ceremony.
the donations have continued through the sale and we received a lot of children's books. We will be boxing the extras - we do have a small permanent sale at the library.