Comic book lovers from Centre County and beyond may be able to find a rare treasure at AAUW State College’s annual book sale, scheduled for Saturday through Tuesday at the Penn State Ag Arena.
According to Star Campbell, a member of the publicity team for the local chapter of AAUW, 4,000 comic books, most of which were printed in the last 10 to 20 years, will be for sale at the event.
Campbell said there are more than 1,000 original titles, including Marvel and D.C. Comics, as well as comics from more than 100 small publishers.
Proceeds from the book sale fund grants for local community programs that reflect AAUW’s mission to advance equity for women and girls and provide scholarships to returning adult women students.
According to Campbell, the big influx of comic books comes at the perfect time, as organizers of the decade-old book sale are now seeing a change in how consumers are getting their media.
“We have a lot of books,” said Campbell. “But people aren’t just looking for books anymore. They are looking for CDs, sheet music, audio books, puzzles and DVD movies. We’ll have thousands of them.
“We also have board games and, in fact, we recently received a large donation of games in excellent condition. They’ll sell fast.”
But, if it’s books people are after, it’s books people will find. The 250,000 tomes are broken down into 30 categories and cover tables spread strategically across the floor of Penn State Snider Ag Arena.
“This year, people are going to find a lot more children’s and young adult books. We always have a lot of children’s books, but for whatever reason, this year’s donations were more than usual,” said Campbell. “We have more than 24,000 children’s and young adult books this year.”
She said that is up 25 percent from 2017.
Campbell also noted that the sale is known as a “clean sale.”
“Our volunteers look closely through each book or item to make sure there is no damage, water marks, torn pages, underlining, etc. If there is, we don’t bring it to the sale.”
AAUW’s first book sale occurred in 1962 at a location on East College Avenue. Although no records of how many books were available at that sale, it is known $179 was made at the event. In comparison, last year’s sale grossed $143,000.
Along the way, the sale has moved its location. It was held at the G.C. Murphy building on South Allen Street from 1966 to 1967 and at People’s National Bank, also on South Allen Street, from 1970 to 1972. It spent some time again on East College at the Wesley Foundation from 1974 to 1981, before moving to the HUB on Penn State’s campus in 1984. It has called the Ag Arena home since 1999.
The sale runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day. Campbell said popular days will be Monday, May 14, when everything is half-price, and Tuesday, May 15, when people can bring their own cloth grocery bags and fill them for $7.
Volunteers can take cash or checks only for purchases at the sale.
Donations for the 2019 sale will be accepted beginning Saturday, June 16. Books may be dropped off at the AAUW workshop building, located at 176 Technology Drive in Boalsburg. There, blue bins are available for donations when the workshop is not open.
For more information, visit www.aauwstatecollege.org.
