PITTSTON — What do gardens and the Pittston Memorial Library have in common? They both need weeding.
Library Director Patricia Joyce said weeding is the technical term used when a library purges its shelves of old stock to make way for new books. Materials pulled will go straight into the 47 Broad St. building’s basement, where it will join books and DVDs already gathered for Friends of Pittston Memorial Library’s book sale.
Held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 28 and 29, the book sale raises money for Friends of Pittston Memorial Library, an organization that supports library programs like LEGO Club, Blackout Poetry Night and Teen Reading Lounge.
“We believe in the importance of the library,” said Friends of Pittston Library President Maria Capolarella-Montante. “I’ve been doing this since 1970, so I think it’s rather important for children to know the library is there. It’s a place they can enjoy reading and intermingle with other children. It’s just a wonderful place for people to learn and a great place for the community.”
Capolarella-Montante said the sale has been extended to two days from its usual one in order to accommodate the large volume of available materials.
The books sold by the Friends group are donations, all with a copyright date of 2000 or later; none are of the textbook or encyclopedia variety. This year, the retired library books will join that stock and be sold at prices as low as $0.25 each.
Friends member Ellen Mondlak is a founding member of the organization and said the sale has been a cornerstone of its fundraising efforts for as long as she can remember.
“We’ve had them even when the library was in City Hall, so we’ve been having them for forever it seems,” Mondlak said. “We were in the basement in City Hall for a long time, before the library was built on Broad Street, so we had them there. It’s been a common thing we’ve had for forever.”
For Mondlak, the book sale’s organizational qualities are what set it apart from other area offerings.
“The categories are all separate — the novels, fiction and non-fiction — and they’re all in alphabetical order,” Mondlak said.
Along with the book sale, Friends also raises funds through gift card raffles and a Barnes & Noble Booksellers book fair.
“They mean everything to us because they are our main supporter financially for all of our programming,” Joyce said of the Friends group before she mentioned the organization is always open to new members.