Gail Parker was checking books donated to the East Hampton Library for signatures from people of note when she found something else that piqued her interest instead: a back-and-forth “love story.”
For years, a husband and wife had been writing notes in books and then giving them to each other as gifts. Eventually, the books found their way to the library’s donation pile.
“It’s not in vogue anymore,” Ms. Parker said. “People don’t give books the way they used to, and they don’t spend time writing something. I actually felt like I had come to get to know them.”
Ms. Parker found the books while working in the library’s room for online book sales; books have been listed on Amazon since 2013. Just last month, Dennis Fabiszak, the library’s director, congratulated the group on selling the 25,000th book, netting $600,000 total for the library’s operating budget.
“At that time, very few people were doing that, so we could get much more money than we could now,” Debbie Walter, a library board member, said of the program’s start over a decade ago.
Now, Mr. Fabiszak said, the library receives upward of thousands of books each week through donations. If the books are worth less than $10 on the internet — paperbacks, books in poor condition, etc. — then the library makes them available on the free-book shelves.
“We’d rather it go on the shelves for free, and somebody take it right away and enjoy it,” he said. “That’s become a huge thing. There’s people who come here and do their Christmas shopping by browsing our free shelves.”
During the summer, the library’s Steven Spataro said, the group leaves beach reads, like Dick Francis mysteries or Nicholas Sparks romances, on carts down at Main Beach. “We do get quite a few paperbacks, and they do have a use.”
If a book is worth more than $10, then the crew lists it on Amazon to be sold. Mr. Spataro handles all the rare books, signed books, and albums, which he often lists on eBay as a way to get the highest price.
Occasionally, the group comes across an item that might be better suited for another library. East Hampton donated a book about whaling in Connecticut to the New Bedford Free Public Library recently, for instance.
“Whenever we can, we’ll do that, even if it’s something that we could make money on,” Mr. Fabiszak said. “We’d rather see it go to the best place for it to be appreciated and used.”
When the group found a book signed by Victor D’Amico, they contacted the Art Barge at Lazy Point. The museum gladly put the book in its collection. Mr. Spataro mentioned that the director knew the book’s former owner.
As part of the project, the library ships books all over the world. One about Roy Lichtenstein, for example, sold to a defense minister in South Korea.
One benefit of raising money this way — as opposed to people grabbing bags of books — is “the books are going to the people that really want them for a specific reason and are going to appreciate them,” Mr. Fabiszak said.
The job is not limited to shuffling paperbacks: Memorabilia and trinkets are often found in boxes and dust jackets while the books are being checked for signatures of note. Of the books signed by ex-presidents — Harry Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter — Johnson’s sold for the most. A book signed by Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the Allied forces in the Pacific during World War II, went to one of his relatives for $450.
The group found another book signed and sketched in by an aviator from Rhinebeck, N.Y., who addressed it to the actor Cliff Robertson. Mr. Spataro went through newspaper archives in Westchester County and found the date in 1980 when the actor was there. Eventually, an aviation enthusiast bought the book for $500.
Once, Mr. Spataro was sorting through a stack of donated books when an unused ticket to see Frank Sinatra at Radio City Music Hall from 1983 fell out. Seeing it, Mr. Spataro listed the stub on eBay — “it’s ephemera” — where it ended up selling for $60.
One donor dropped off a copy of every Playboy magazine since the first edition — five or six boxes’ worth — which ultimately sold for a few hundred dollars: “It didn’t go for that much because we were trying to clear it out,” Mr. Spataro said.
The volunteers have found anything from divorce papers to high-heeled shoes. Calling cards from the previous century, though, are particularly amusing to Mr. Spataro. “It makes you want to look the person up: Who were they? What did they do?”
Representatives from jails occasionally stop by to browse through the bookshelves, looking for material that would be suitable for inmates. One social worker from Rikers Island took every cookbook available.
To get the word out that the library accepts donations, the group relies on social media, free event calendars, and word of mouth — “I work the cocktail parties,” Ms. Parker joked.
“We love to take books,” she said. The donors “can feel that they’re going to a very good place, either they will be supporting the library or they will be supporting the community.”
