Second Hand Prose
Did you know there is a bookstore at the library?
Second Hand Prose is our volunteer run used bookstore located in the Entry Garden of the Downtown Library. Please remember that all of our books/magazines are donated by the generous folks of Eugene and the surrounding area. Click here for information regarding how you can donate books/magazines to the store and our other sales venues. Are you a Friends' member? Members enjoy a 10% discount in our store; join here. Interested in working as a volunteer in the store? Check out the Book Store Volunteer job description and duties here. Then stop by the store on a Tuesday or Wednesday between 10 AM and 11:30 AM and discuss with Ken Ehler, volunteer manager about additional details.
Store Hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Saturday 10:00 - 4:00
Sunday 1:00 - 4:00
Wednesday 10:00 - 6:00
Thursday closed
Friday 4:30 - 7:30 (First Friday only)***
***Everything in the store is Buy one get one Free (Equal or lesser value)
Classics is our featured monthly BOGO special in Second Hand Prose for August; just right for end of summer reading. Volunteer store manager, Ken, reflects on how reading might impact one's summertime adventures. . . "Summertime is a time for great escapes: many people go on adventures that take them to far flung parts of the Earth; a few brave souls are now planning a one way trip through outer space to Mars. However, some of us prefer to explore that great mystery - the imagination - through the inspiration that comes from reading books. Second Hand Prose is an ideal launching pad for a trip through one’s imagination via the vehicle of fiction- especially great literature since the monthly BOGO (buy one….get one free) feature for August (and, also, for September) is the category we refer to as our Classics (Lit). We are fortunate to have a good variety of both classic and contemporary literature throughout the year. Currently classics by Twain, Swift, Dickens, Conrad and many others together with contemporary literature by such celebrated authors as, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Kurt Vonnegut, and Pearl Buck will be found on store shelves. Special note: we always seem to have at least one of Jane Austin's and at least one of the Bronte sister's classics in stock; we cannot guarantee specific titles since our inventory comes exclusively from the generosity of our local Eugene community via their loyal book/magazine donations.
Another way our customers venture into unknown worlds via the imagination is through science fiction. We do our best to keep in stock both classic science fiction and contemporary science fiction titles. Travel interest more for the real world? We also have a travel book category (Misc. – travel). Thanks to our generous and loyal donors we are able to offer up-to-date travel books such as those by Rick Steves, Lonely Planet, National Geographic, and Frommer's. We do usually have current travel magazines, as well as many other magazines. Here are some guidelines for donating magazines: in general we only accept current magazines; news magazines only from the current month; travel and most other l magazines no older than three months, please. The Atlantic magazine is popular so we will accept back issues up to four months. Since these titles are especially popular in the store, we will accept Smithsonian, National Geographic and The New Yorker magazine up to 6 months old. We will continue our Classics BOGO into September because students in our area who are returning to classes appreciate the availability of these titles in our store. Next month I will continue my observations regarding how our store inventory helps students in our area along with other examples of how our literature collection helps feed the imagination of our customers."
