Friends to hold Wisconsin’s largest used book sale on Oct. 12–15

The Friends of the UW–Madison Libraries will host their semiannual used book sale Wednesday through Saturday, Oct. 12-15, in 116 Memorial Library. The sale features a wide variety of donated books, journals and magazines in the sciences and humanities with special collections of art books, natural history, urban planning and women’s studies.

In 19 book sales over the past nine years, more than 284,000 books have been sold. Those statistics become all the more remarkable when tied to their outcome – more than $350,000 for library grants, scholarly research, special acquisitions and conservation projects.

The Friends have built the event into the single largest used book sale in Wisconsin, thanks largely to volunteers. This group has contributed more than 3,000 hours over the last nine years, independently of other library volunteer work.

Sales revenue goes to a variety of supporting activities, such as grants to campus libraries for acquisitions, preservation and conservation. In addition, the Friends annually distribute several grants of up to $1,000 to researchers from around the world who visit Madison to pursue humanities-related research in Memorial Library.

The Friends host a lecture series every semester and have been a sponsor of the annual Wisconsin Book Festival held in Madison.