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| | | (HATCHER HURD/www.northfulton.com)
Books, books and more books wait browsers at the Alpharetta used book sale. (click for larger version) | |
January 30, 2008
ALPHARETTA -- The Alpharetta Library is like The Little Engine That Could. It keeps on huffing and puffing to meet the needs of nearly 65,000 residents in Milton and Alpharetta, but the small 10,000-square-foot branch could not do it alone.
No, the library has to have friends. And fortunately, friends are what North Fulton's smallest branch does have. As in, Friends of the Library, a national organization with a chapter in every North Fulton library.
The Alpharetta branch has small but dedicated core of volunteers, less than 20, who keep the woefully understaffed library going. For 20 years, the Friends of the Alpharetta Library have helped provide children's programming, adult speakers and paid for materials such as tape and labels to mend books and audiocassettes to extend their shelf lives.
The group also provides extra funds to the library -- raising $45,000 in 2007 -- that supplement the library's budget.
The fundraising comes almost entirely from the lively book sale the Friends conduct the first Saturday of each month. More than a thousand books, hardcover and paperback, on just about any subject are for sale at bargain prices.
Mary and Kevin of Milton say they enjoy picking up a good book doing a leisurely browse around stacks of books on the library's grounds.
David Morris is a more serious book collector and he likes to come to the sale and troll for rare books and first editions. He enjoys trolling the boxes of books to see what gems he can find.
He got a first edition of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" for 50 cents. He also found a biography of Abraham Lincoln's war years -- another first edition – by his secretary. That one he got for $10.
"You just have to get in there in the stacks and dig," said Morris.
Linda Statham, a retired speech and language pathologist, has been a volunteer for years along with her husband Ben. She said she knows first-hand the importance of putting books in the hands of children.
"It is what develops an educated citizenry," she said.
In addition to organizing children's programs at the Alpharetta library, the Friends also have book outreach programs. Recently, Statham and others took 10 boxes of books to a Rome school for children who had no books at home.
"Teachers can't do it all. There needs to be books in the home," Statham said.
- www.northfulton.com
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