Ithaca Book Sale T-Rex Wannabes, and a species that truly IS endangered

Back off, lady! The Peter Dickinson book is MINE!

OK, so I'm super far behind on posting. I really apologize. I have a more academic post that I'm in the process of writing, but this post will bleed into it.

Some of you may know that I'm obsessed with book sales--well, with books in general-- and with the fabulous Ithaca book sale  (Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library Book Sale) in particular.
One of the reasons this sale is so spectacular is that they have a warehouse full of a quarter of a million good books for super low prices. The sale happens in both fall and spring (with the fall sale being the more highly attended), and lasts for three weekends each time. This past weekend was the second fall weekend, and next weekend will be the wrap-up.

The line at around 7:55 AM, T-minus 5 minutes to
opening day. You can't see it in this photo, but the
line stretches beyond the brick building to the right,
and wraps halfway around the next block.

On opening day of the sale, there tends to be a fairly long line of folks wanting to get first shot at the best books. You can lay your hands on some amazing finds for a flat price ($4.50 for hardcovers and trade paperbacks, $3.50 for children's hardcovers, $2.50 for mass market paperbacks, and $1 for all children's paperbacks--the prices go down each day), so it draws a huge number of booksellers keen to get pricey textbooks on the cheap to resell (we call them "scalpers"), or collectors out to find something rare and incredible, or people who just can't afford Barnes & Noble or Borders anymore. Needless to say, things can get a little nutty on opening day. Sleep-deprivation + adrenalin + book sale=temporary insanity. I liken it to a shark rolling its eyes back into its head as it goes in for the feeding frenzy.

Names are actually scratched out in blue where folks failed
to be in line for the first check!

Fortunately, The Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library group that runs the sale knows what the hell they're doing, and there are very strict rules laid down regarding standing in line prior to opening day. You sign in as soon as you get there, and have to remain in line (no sleeping in your car!) until the sale opens at eight (small bathroom breaks are allowed).
They conduct random line checks during the night, and if they call your name and you're not there, so help me, your name gets scratched the hell out! They're not messing around!

The rainy view from Kate's VW on the way out of Syracuse at midnight.

In order to make the top 200 and be part of the first group to go in, I usually like to leave Syracuse by 4 AM at the latest, get there by 5:30, to end up somewhere between 150th-180th in line. Last May, my BFF Kate, our friend Yael, and I decided that (since Kate was moving to Colorado, and it would be her last book sale for the foreseeable future) we should go ALL OUT. We left Syracuse at midnight, determined to see how close to the front of the line we could get. It was Kate's birthday, by the way, and we'd just had a party at her house a few hours before. But Kate has priorities and knows that the Ithaca Book Sale waits for no woman, birthday or no. What a team player!

I am SOOO jacked to be signing in on the first page!

The rain had started earlier that the evening, and didn't let up on the drive down. It was actually Yael's maiden voyage on the Ithaca Book Sale Express, so we regaled her with war stories and taught her some basic bend/reach exercises for snagging those hard-to-reach volumes, along with a few vital block moves for elbowing out a competitor with their eyes on the same book. We also gave her a copy of the sale map, and recommended an ideal route through the sale based on the books she was after.

We made it to Ithaca around 1:15 AM. This is me signing in at the #33 slot, with a crazed look in my eye, and already slightly drenched just from having walked the short distance from the parking lot.

OK, maybe a little TOO excited.

OK, just had to share this gem from Wikipedia's post on "Sign of the horns" in reference to my gesture on the left: "Whatever the derivation may be, the sign eventually came to signify, variously, that the one gesturing is rocking him or herself, is encouraging the recipient of the gesture to rock, and/or that he/she emphatically appreciates the rocking that has already commenced." 


Rock on. And, yes, I did just cite Wikipedia.


Anyway, usually, there's a large group of legit booksellers and the aforementioned "scalpers" camped out in full battle rattle along the first block of the sale. They stay overnight and are therefore in prime position to be the first to hit the big money spots (certain textbook sections, for example). These folks generally set up normal-looking camping gear to wait out the night (see those behind me in the rocked out picture).

Who is Cadaver Man?

We noticed a strange addition to the line last spring, though. "Cadaver Man" had us all stumped. He looked like a morgue delivery with a plastic sheet over himself, but no visible toe tag. I wondered if the  "Wink's Body Shop" banner on the fence near him might indicate that he was a kind of prop/advertisement, but he eventually emerged from his chrysalis as a middle-aged man! Go figure! He at least probably stayed drier than we did that night, though.

We stationed ourselves at the tail end of the line, and huddled together on lawn chairs under one giant golf umbrella, which didn't do much of anything, considering we all three had our backs pressed against it, drawing the water straight through the material. It was pouring in good earnest now, and we basically got soaked. Did I mention there was a thunderstorm going on? Of course, because of said thunderstorm, we remained the last people in line until folks started showing up somewhat later than normal, about four hours after we'd arrived. We technically could have left Syracuse several hours later than we did, and gotten the same spot in line, but then I wouldn't be telling you this awesome story about how badass I am, now would I?

Once 6 o'clock rolls around, you're in the gravy, as that's when the Ithaca Bakery (conveniently located just around the corner) opens its doors, providing caffeine, delicious pastries/breakfast sandwiches, and a clean, dry restroom. At last, you can begin to recover some semblance of your humanity, just in time to throw it aside in the scuffle that is the first rush into the sale.

Running on adrenalin and at least four shots of espresso from Ithaca Bakery. I look like a stoned homeless person, but Kate manages to look adorable in pearl earrings and Chanel glasses. Wait, is her hair curled?!?!

Don't get me wrong: the sale is incredibly well-organized, and most people are polite. I probably am just playing this up because (like Kristen Wiig with a surprise party) I get so frickin' excited!!

Photo courtesy of NBC/SNL

So excited, in fact, that this fall, I infected two new people with the Ithaca Book Sale Bug: my fellow LIS student Alison, and her partner, Nick, who was visiting from Philly. They were game for leaving the 'cuse around 4 AM the first day, and we packed big sleeping bags (much more comfortable than lawn chairs, but only really do-able sans rain), and set off. We all found some stuff we liked, had a great time, and ate fabulous Ithaca Bakery baked goods afterwards (their cheesecake brownie is one of The Best Things On This Green Earth).

This is me, Alison & Nick camped out waiting for the sale to begin!

Maybe by now, you sort of have an idea how excited I get about this sale. Don't judge me too harshly on this, but this fall I switched out of one class and into another in large part because the first class required an on-campus residency that conflicted with the first weekend of the Ithaca Book Sale. There were other reasons, of course. I didn't feel knowledgeable enough yet about how school media centers even operated to create the sort of lesson plans y'all were working on in 663, so it made more sense for me to take 661, but that's beside the point.

What's the purpose of this overly-long blog post, you may ask? Good question.

I guess this was my thinking: Perhaps I might be considered a dinosaur for still enjoying paper books, but it doesn't appear as though those of us so inclined are going away any time soon. If droves of us will line up in the rain and cold for hours just in HOPES of getting our mitts on some special copies, I don't think that sentiment is headed for extinction any time soon.

There IS, however, one endangered species that plays a vital part of this ecosystem about whose survival I AM DEEPLY concerned. And that is my book shelves. I'd wager it's fair to say that my current collection is about the size of my small, hometown library's children's collection, or at least would be sufficient to fill a well-stocked book mobile. My greedy, unchecked consumption has used up the available space, and now I'm colonizing other areas (the sideboard in the dining room, the ottoman in the living room, etc.) for "shelf space".




These pics are of my main shelves, although I have another full of vintage kids books that needs weeding, and at least a few books in every room, in case a natural disaster or accident should leave me stranded:). This, of course, doesn't include my husband's bookshelves. I've sort of taken over the living room. Already, I'm stacking books two deep on these shelves. What to do? It doesn't help that I brought home a new bag of books from Powell's in Chicago again this weekend, to mingle with the two overloaded bags from Ithaca, and a previous bag from Powell's from a few weeks ago.





So if anyone feels led to help support an endangered species breeding program with a donation of any spare shelving, I'd love to hear from you.

And I know I could probably fit all of these on a Kindle/Nook/Sony eReader. But how would I then decorate my house?!* And who would line up and sleep in the rain overnight in order to, what, download a file? Nope. While I may opt for an e-reader at some point in the future, for now, I'm just gonna keep building my book sanctuary:)

*In the words of Anna Quindlen in her 8/7/91 NY Times article "Enough Bookshelves": "I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."