Bookworm December 2013

Fall Issue Bookworm December 2013

President’s Letter

Dear Friends, Workroom Our members are our most valuable assets. The Friends of Information the Macon Bibb County Libraries could not accomplish all that we do without you. Everyone will be receiving a letter Phone: 478-745-2422 soon from our membership chair, Gail Moon, and I hope you will renew your membership or join again if you have not renewed in the last few years. Actually many of our Mailing Address: P.O. volunteers are not members. If you’re not, please consider Box 18175, Macon GA joining. A friends’ membership makes a wonderful holiday 31209 gift for the person who has everything!

Our membership helps build the literary community in the Location: 2720 Riverside middle Georgia area. We not only hold the book sale, Dr. Suite 129, Macon GA which helps fund the libraries, but work with literacy ef- 31209 forts in our community. Our newsletter, website and face- book page help promote literary events. We are working with other groups to promote writers and author visits, and E-mail: friendsoftheli- we are planning book loving social events for our members. [email protected] This year we will be able to have our preview party the Wednesday night before the sale with unlimited books sales for members only. To show our appreciation of your membership, we will have a book tote bag with our Friends logo imprinted on it for each membership. These bags will be available for pickup at the preview party and during the Membership benefits sale.  Invitations to mem- Speaking of the preview party, it looks as if we will be back bers-only parties and at our old home in Central City Park at our old time, the sales last week of February. We are still working out the details with the Department of Parks and Recreation so stay tuned!  Access to visiting au- This year’s sale stands to be better than ever! thors and programs  Membership in Wendy Cassidy, President Fiends book clubs and book review club  Opportunities to vol- unteer  Free admission to Friends sponsored President Wendy Cassi- dy, past president Andy events Newton and FOL member Mike Fuller present- ing a $60,000 check to Thomas Jones, director Bibb County Regional Library Page 2 Bookworm

Online Book Sales Growth Looks Promising John Gregor

The FOL has been selling books on eBay for about 9 months. We have an eBay store and continue to increase the number of books listed. Currently we have about 800 books listed and plan to have 1,000 offerings before the end of the year. The name of our store on eBay is Friends-Books. You can visit us at stores.ebay.com/friends -books. This program is ably directed by John Gregor.

Volunteers at the workroom now have a whole new assortment of things to do. Listing books online involves: research to determine how much each book should sell for, taking pictures of books & listing on eBay, pro- cessing purchased orders, and packaging/shipping books. All of these duties require additional volunteers to keep our operation running. Currently we don’t have enough volunteers to support 1,000 listings on eBay, so we need your help. You can contact us at [email protected]. Come in and give us a hand and in the process you will learn how to sell on eBay!

If you have any questions email us at [email protected] So far there are 13 volunteers working on the Online Sales Team. We can not thank them enough for what they have done to develop this whole new effort at the FOL. They will soon meet their 2013 goal of 1,000 books listed in our eBay store, and it’s estimated that our sales on eBay will generate net sales of around $20,00 this year. You can visit our store at stores.ebay.com/friends-books

WRAPPING MATERIAL NEEDED John Gregor and his on-line team have requested everyone to check their closets to see if they have any excess wrapping material that could be used in the wrapping and mailing process for on-line sales. This includes “bubble wrap”, tissue paper or anther forms of clean wrapping material that could be used for this purpose. News print is not desirable due to the possibility of ink bleeding onto the book or product being mailed. Please drop off your materials at the FOL workroom.

Volunteers for On-Line Sales and their Roles (Cont’d on page 3)

Christine Holms, Re- Dayoon Park search and Pricing John Gregor, Listing and Lydia Park, Listing Page 3 Bookworm

Volunteers Cont’d FOL Members Get Online Purchases at Dis- count Online selling is a new form of revenue for the Cynthia Knight, FOL. It will allow us to expand our sales across Listing the world. With this new venture, we want to give FOL members the opportunity to purchase from our online store at a discount. All books for sale online will NOT be at the Old Book Sale.

As a member of the FOL you can get any book

that is listed in our eBay store for 25% off the

listed price. Currently there are approximately

1,000 books to choose from. Here’s how to purchase using your member dis- Taylor count… Tabb, [1] Select the book you want from our store Listing listings [2] Click on the “Make Offer” button [3] Calculate 75% of the listed price [4] Enter that figure as your offer price [5] Click on “Add message to seller” and let us know you’re a FOL member [6 Click “Review” and then Submit Offer” but-

tons [7] We will verify your current membership, Bob Bailey, accept your offer, and send you an Invoice Research and Pricing You can also pick up the book at our workroom here in Macon and save on shipping.

Visit our store at: stores.ebay.com/friends-books

Wendy Cassidy, Listing Alice Bailey, Pack and Ship

Kaye Foltz, Pack and Ship

Larry Caldwell, Research and Pricing Friends of the Library

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Space for Mailing address

Volkoff Colloquium

Friday November 15 was a special day for Friends of the Library. Eleven of our members attended the Vladi- mir Volkoff Colloquium at Tarver Library at Mercer University. This was the first literary event at our colleges and universities that FOL has highlighted as an event for group attendance and the feedback from our members was very positive.

As documented in the preface of his Book, the Pope’s Guest, Vladimir Volkoff was a remarkably prolific writ- er, publishing not only fiction but also plays, biblical commentaries, biographies and children’s mysteries. He spoke Russian, French and English fluently and lived for two decades in Georgia, first, in Decatur where he taught languages at Agnes Scott and then in Macon after he retired from teaching to devote full time to his writing career.

Our host and faculty sponsor of the event, Dr. John Dunaway, was the first speaker of the colloquium, summa- rizing the amazing career of Professor Volkoff and described many of his recent experiences traveling to Paris and meeting with Volkoff’s widow Denise as he collected the valuable writings that were brought back to the Mercer University archives.

We look forward to future literary events at our local colleges and universities and encourage members to monitor the FOL web site (click on “events” and then “literary events”) for a listing of what is to come.

Membership Form

Name______renewal Address______new member

Phone______Your membership is good through 12/31/13 Make checks payable to: Email______$10 student/library employee Friends of the Library, Inc. and mail to ____$25 individual/ friend P.O. Box 18175 Macon, GA 31209 If you’re interested in volunteering, email us at ____$50 couple/patron [email protected] or call us at ____$100 family/benefactor 478-745-2422. ____$300 life member