Last Updated on February 22, 2024, 9:22 AM | Published: February 22, 2024
OKLAHOMA CITY — This coming weekend, crowds thousands strong will descend upon the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds to rummage, rifle, and ransack an absolutely mammoth booksale inventory that might even dwarf any major chain bookstore’s selection.
Each February for 44 years, the Metropolitan Library System and its non-profit partner the Friends of the Library have presented a massive booksale that brings in buyers from all across the city, state, and sometimes even beyond for the reader’s dream of near-endless books at ultra-cheap prices.
That’s because the sprawling selection laid out across a full fairgrounds building is culled from a year’s worth of library stock extras, retired loaners, and donation overflows from throughout the entire Metropolitan Library System.
As you can imagine, it’s a lot of work.
“What makes the sale continue to be so popular is that we have a really great inventory,” said Heather Zeoli, Director of Development and Volunteer Services for the Metropolitan Library System. “Our volunteer team does a really good job in managing that inventory to make sure that everybody has a good time and a good experience and that it’s worth coming out and supporting the library.”
And this year, it’s not only helping to support our libraries, as funds raised at the booksale will go toward the nationally beloved Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to help early childhood literacy.
Massive Selection
The exact number of books available for purchase at the sale each year is difficult to pinpoint, but it’s a lot.
“It’s about 250 pallets,” Zeoli said, “about 500,000 books.”
That selection comes from many different sources, primarily through donations and through libraries “retiring” books after years of hard wear and tear or even overstock after an initial period of “new release” fervor.
“If there’s a popular book that comes out, and everyone has to have it in the first week of release, we may end up with twenty extra copies in the system,” Zeoli said. “And so those will go to the booksale”
But plenty of copies of consistently popular books may also reach a point where all the attention has left them in a state that falls below the library’s standards for check-out, but that would fit just fine in a home collection, or even on a child’s shelf.
“These books circulate throughout all of the libraries in our system, and we have nineteen libraries, so books can reach their maximum ‘service life,'” she explained. “Boy, those ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ books can get pretty tattered by the time they’re withdrawn.”
Online Sales
Library staff works all year long to spot and withdraw books like that from circulation, and they’re normally then transferred to the Friends of the Library non-profit that works to sell off those old books and materials to raise library funds.
But the massive, once-a-year booksale blowout at the fairgrounds isn’t the only way they do that.
“Friends of the Library has actually also been selling online since about 2012,” Zeoli said. “They have an Amazon storefront and they’re on eBay. As a non-profit, the goal is just to make money to help support the library system, so they maintain a stock of about 5,000 books online, which sounds like a lot until you see how many are at the booksale.”
Volunteer Force
Of course, sorting, organizing, and coordinating an event of this size unsurprisingly requires a large, energetic staff, and with Friends of the Library, that’s all volunteers.
“Friends of the Library doesn’t have any paid staff,” Zeoli said. “They’re all volunteer-based and we at the library just help to provide the office and some leadership.”
While the Friends maintain a year-round crew of about 120 volunteers to sort and organize the bookselling efforts, the volunteer numbers that show up each year for the big sale event are huge.
“We have approximately 1,000 volunteers that come through and do this event,” Zeoli said. “Sometimes they just do it once, but sometimes they come back year after year.”
The volunteers turning out to assist the sale range from former librarians to teachers to just book lovers that enjoy being around the word-hungry crowds.
“It’s such an incredibly diverse group of people,” she said. “They’re what makes the booksale happen.”
‘Quite an Adventure’
Last year was the first time that booksale staff attempted to keep a running headcount of visitors throughout the weekend, counting more than 20,000 through the doors of the Oklahoma Expo Hall.
They expect that many or more again this year.
It’s that kind of public interest that has seen the Friends of the Library raise more than $6 million for the Metropolitan Library System over the decades, and this year, many of those funds will be going toward a specific outreach cause.
“We’re combining our efforts with the Library Endowment Trust to raise funds for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program,” Zeoli explained. “It’s a book-gifting program that provides one book per month for registered children who have not yet had their fifth birthday and live in Oklahoma County. We currently have about 15,000 kids enrolled and we’d like to double that number over the next year.”
We had a wedding proposal at the booksale last year.
Heather Zeoli, Director of Development and Volunteer Services for the Metropolitan Library System
By partnering with such a successful and respected nationwide program that’s encouraging early childhood reading, they’re helping to ensure that passionate, excited readers will keep flocking to the annual booksale for years to come.
“People come from all over for this,” Zeoli said. “They plan vacations around it. We had a wedding proposal at the booksale last year.”
It’s that kind of positive, pro-reading energy that keeps both the crowds and the volunteers coming back every year for this sale that has become a true Oklahoma City institution.
“It’s been quite an adventure to understand how they’ve had 40+ years of history with this epic event,” Zeoli said. “It’s an honor.”
Event Information
The Metropolitan Library System’s Friends of the Library Booksale is open to the public Saturday, February 24th, and Sunday, February 25th from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Oklahoma Expo Hall at the State Fairgrounds.
Friends of the Library members have access to a full day of members-only shopping on Friday, February 23rd from 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm. To become a member, visit supportmls.org.
School teachers and non-profits can sign up here to claim unsold inventory for classrooms and outreach programs in an exclusive event from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm on Sunday, February 25th.
For more information, visit metrolibrary.org.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
