Last weekend’s discount book bonanza brought in a record number of dollars to help fund initiatives at the Cochrane Public Library.
“I think we had a record weekend,” said Andrea Beck, chair of the Friends of the Cochrane Public Library, who hosted the Beyond Words sale. “We’ve been doing this for four or five years – this weekend was the best of all the weekends we’ve done it.
“It was so fun … Maybe it’s starting to become a tradition in Cochrane.”
Saturday morning, a crowd of people waited outside for first pick at the thousands of books in categories ranging from cookbooks to classics and priced at $1 or $2 each.
“It was elbow to elbow in there for several hours … it was so busy in there, it was hard to get to the tables,” Beck said. “There was even people crawling under the tables to find books … it was a neat atmosphere.”
The sale continued through Sunday, and by the end of the weekend the Friends had raked in more than $4,100 in cash and about $4,000 more in debit and credit card sales.
“It was amazing,” said the library’s executive director Jeri Maitland.
Those who missed the initial offering can still load up on the remaining titles by donation, and after Saturday the price will drop to $5 a bag to clear out any final inventory.
The money will be used primarily to fund a new power tool lending library, which will give cardholders an opportunity to borrow saws and drills and other expensive construction tools at no cost.
“It’s going to be a really big boon to the community,” Maitland said. “We’re really excited about it.”
