Friends Foundation of Birmingham Public Library to Host Book Fair at Hi-Wire Brewing March 7, Spring Booksale at Central Library April 4-6
Birmingham, Ala. - Want to support the Birmingham Public Library and find great book deals at the same time? You have two upcoming opportunities to do both at book sales hosted by the Friends Foundation of the Birmingham Public Library.
This Thursday, March 7, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., Hi-Wire Brewing at 2901 4th Avenue South is hosting the Friends Foundation Book Fair. Drop by after work and create your reading list while taking advantage of Hi-Wire Brewing's Benefit Pint Night! $1.00 from each purchase from Taps #5-8 (Double Hi-Pitch, Pink Lemonade Sour, Mountain Water and Leisure Time Lager) will be contributed to the Friends Foundation to help support the programs and services of the Birmingham Public Library.
Also, the Friends Bookstore Spring Book Sale will be held at the Central Library in downtown Birmingham, 2100 Park Place, from Thursday through Saturday, April 4–6. See the times on the flyer above.
Learn more about the Friends Foundation of the Birmingham Public Library by reading this interview Friends of BPL President Sandi Lee did last fall with Mary Hannah McPhail-Edwards.
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| The Friends of BPL Bookstore is located on the first floor of the Central Library downtown. |
“Once a librarian always a librarian,” declares Sandi Lee, president of the Friends Foundation of the Birmingham Public Library. “It’s hard to get that out of your blood.”
For 25 years, she was a librarian at the Birmingham Public Library, where she often worked closely with the Friends Bookstore, a used bookstore located inside the library. A year after her retirement, the library bug bit her again. She offered her expertise to the Friends Bookstore, which is both a valuable source of books, audio books, CD’s, and DVDs for Birmingham readers, and a fundraiser for the Birmingham Public Library.
“You come in and you’ll find something different every time,” says Lee. Fiction used to be the Friends Bookstore’s top sellers, but Lee says it has been outmatched by history and biography. Since Birmingham has long been a center of history, including the civil rights movement, industrial progress, and more recent urban renewal and growth, this is not surprising.
As a nonprofit, the Friends Bookstore is passionate about giving residents of Birmingham a place to learn about and serve their city. The Friends Bookstore is staffed entirely by volunteers, many of whom are retired professionals—retired librarians, lawyers, nurses, and IT technicians.
“The volunteers we currently have are ‘book people,’ but ‘people people,'" says Lee. “They like to come in and interact with people.”
Volunteers and readers are able build a community together based on their common love of reading. For example, one volunteer, a retired nurse, learned that a frequent customer was in medical school. Luckily, the Friends Bookstore was able to help.
"Week before last, we had a gentleman at St. Vincent’s whose colleague passed away, and he was given the task of disposing of his medical books. Some of them were still in the shrink wrap.”
In addition to helping the customer find medical textbooks at a manageable price, the volunteer was also able to provide mentorship and support. According to Lee, these relationships are one of the many rewards of volunteering at the Friends Bookstore.
"People bring their specialty with them when they come in to volunteer, and they’re really able to share that.”
In addition to books and other materials discarded by the library, the Friends Bookstore also accepts donations from members of the community.
"People can’t throw away books,” says Lee.
Even if donated books are not sold in the Friends Bookstore, they will not go to waste. The Friends Bookstore finds them a home elsewhere.
When the main library’s books are lost and stolen, the Friends Bookstore helps them fill in the gaps.
“A lot of times, people take it upon themselves to relieve the library of things they don’t like,” Lee observes. With book banning on the rise in the South, the Birmingham Library hopes to stand in favor of free speech and against censorship, a goal that the Friends Bookstore helps accomplish.
Besides the library itself, the Friends Bookstore has many other channels it uses to provide books to Birmingham. One of the Friends Bookstore's main objectives is to support library outreach in the community. Lee says, "We get lots and lots of children's books, and we have relationships with individuals and organizations that sponsor the Little Free Libraries in their communities. We are also able to help organizations that offer summer camps for children and want to have books available during those sessions."
Older readers also have the Friends Bookstore to thank for their books. “We have had relationships with nursing homes and different residential facilities,” says Lee.
In addition, the Friends Bookstore partners with Books to Prisons, a nonprofit that sends free books to incarcerated individuals in Alabama and Texas.
Friends Bookstore Hours and Location
The Friends Bookstore is on the first floor of the Birmingham Public Library downtown. It is open to patrons on Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and the first Saturday of every month from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Prior to COVID, the hours were more expansive, but once more volunteers step up, the Friends Bookstore hopes to be able to increase their hours again.
The Friends Bookstore is currently seeking volunteers. Shifts are usually four hours or less, and they are always willing to work with their volunteer’s schedules.
To donate or volunteer, call 205-226-3676 or email Friendsbookstore@cobpl.org. All donors receive a donation receipt, which can be used to claim tax deductions.
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