GFL Friends at Home on Library Campus

With a year-round book collection/book sorting/Book Fair operation that's largely responsible for driving in more than $60,000 to assist the library, its programs, and patrons annually, the Friends of the Guilford Free Library is a significant member of Guilford's public library family. Now, it has a new home, right on the library campus.

Recently, the Town of Guilford determined the best use for the vacated white house next door to the library parking lot will include allowing the Friends to move in to several of its first-floor rooms. The space was most recently let to non-profit Guilford Day Care for $1 a month. The day care is now in its new home on Stone House Lane.

Now numbering some 800 members, the Friends group was established in 1973. Before Guilford's recent library renovation/expansion, Friends volunteers worked out of shared space in storage rooms in the former building. Then, the Friends followed the library to use its temporary warehouse location on Carter Drive, where it worked from a cavernous space in the back of the building.

"We meet every Thursday, year round," said Jane Marshall, co-chair of the Friends Book and Bake Sale. "We have about 25 different volunteer sorters who'll spend two or three hours helping every week."

Once the renovated library building opened, the all-volunteer Friends sorting crew moved to a small, rented commercial space on the Boston Post Road. To spare the Friends that continued expense, Library Director Sandra Ruoff worked with the town to help find it a new, permanent home, said Marshall.

"It's good being close to the library again," said Marshall. "We'll use it for sorting books and we'll still come to the library for our meetings. This is a sorting area, a year-round space where we can work. Thousands of books come in through donations people bring to the library, all year long."

The Friends moved its huge assortment of donated books into its new home last month. Last Thursday, a small army of volunteers filed into the house to resume the weekly task of sorting books, many donated by residents.

The Friends's job is to create a huge inventory of gently used books for what has grown into two annual book sales-the Spring Paperback Sale and the extremely popular Fall Book and Bake Sale. This year's Friends Fall Book and Bake sale will take place inside and outside the Guilford Free Library (under large tents) over three days, Friday, Sept. 24 to Sunday, Sept. 26.

Book and Bake Sale Co-Chair Sally Leighton said the fair will once again feature thousands of quality used books of every description in 48 categories, selling for an average of one to three dollars.

Looking over a group of volunteers sorting paperback books in one room, while still more volunteers worked through hardcover donations in another room, Leighton said the new space is working out well.

"It's a huge improvement. We've been hoping for it for a long time," said Leighton.

The Fall Book and Bake Sale at the Guilford Free Library, 67 Park Street, runs Friday Sept. 24 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 25, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sunday, Sept. 26, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For more information, visit www.guilfordfreelibrary.org and click on Friends of the Library.