Volunteers Turn Used Books Into Library Assets

When Ventura library supporters Phyllis Brzozowski and Dottie Gragg come across used books like “100 Years on the Road,” they see dollar signs for the city’s cash-starved library branches.

“It has a lot of appeal,” said Brzozowski, a volunteer with the San Buenaventura Friends of the Library, as she cracked open the hard-bound volume--a social history of the automobile. “Men are interested in cars.”

Tucked away in a corner of a warehouse along the Ventura Freeway, the two volunteers spent Friday morning packing hundreds of donated titles into cartons for the group’s next book sale March 2.

“That’ll sell in a minute,” said Gragg, also a Friends volunteer, spotting a book of illustrations titled “Gnomes.”

The two Ventura residents joined more than a dozen other Friends volunteers who were cleaning, pricing and cataloging new arrivals--turning the whole warehouse into a flurry of activity. Supplied with books picked up at private homes and from bins outside libraries, the Friends book sales have netted thousands of dollars for the four branches in Ventura and Saticoy.

An official from the Ventura County Library Services agency dropped by the warehouse in the morning to pick up a check for $10,000--the Friends’ latest donation for the purchase of new books and materials.

The money comes from book sale proceeds, Friends membership dues, a donation from the Unocal Corp. and a $2,500 grant from the Vielbig Family Fund. Since last April, the Friends have raised nearly $40,000.

“It means we can supply at least some recent material to the public,” Richard Maynard, a supervising librarian with the county agency, said of the donation.

Since 1992, state cuts to local governments have devastated the county agency. The annual operating budget for the city of Ventura’s libraries--excluding the Saticoy branch--has dropped from about $3 million to $1.8 million, limiting the ability to buy new books.

Barbara Swanson, Friends president, said the libraries’ plight has resulted in a surge of book donations to her organization.

“The people are feeling bad,” Swanson said. “The libraries are so low on funds.”

From biographies on Princess Diana to such titles as “Dining on the Deck,” more than 1,000 volumes arrive at the warehouse every week. But not every book sells, and the Friends dropped off about 1,500 at the Ventura County Jail last week.

With all the book traffic, volunteers said they must make sure not to miss any hard-bound treasures such as the 1928 volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay poetry that appeared last week.

“We have to be very careful that we don’t overlook a first edition of anything,” Swanson said.

For more information on book sales or donations, call Swanson at 659-5103.