Have you ever seen a million books?

Well, neither have the folks at the Carondelet YMCA Book
Fair–not all at once at least–but we believe them that they’re
all there.

And they’re going fast–especially with an estimated four to
five thousand bibliophiles from as far away as California and
Florida packing into this quaint, two-story brick building in south
St. Louis city this weekend for one of St. Louis’ biggest and most
affordable used book sales.

“It’s one of the largest book fairs in this area,” said Dan
Schulze, the Carondelet Family YMCA’s program executive. “We don’t
compare dollar-for-dollar, book-for-book, we’re just glad to be one
of the biggest.”

The fair, which opens this Friday evening from 5 to 10 p.m. and
runs through Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day, is now in
its 26th year.

When it began, as a fundraising project for the facility,
located at 600 Loughborough, the sale brought in about $2,000,
according to Paul Fisher, who has been with the fair for the last
20 years.

Last year it raised $95,000, almost all of that is in pocket
change–with most paperbacks going for 50 cents and hardbacks for
$2. Indeed, the entire project, which Schulze says is a year-round
affair, is a small-time, largely volunteer operation from start to
finish.

The Carondelet Y spends months making weekly book collections
from donation boxes they have placed at YMCAs throughout the
metropolitan area.

In March the volunteers begin sorting the more than one million
collected items–a task, Schulze said, they had nearly completed by
last week, when the cataloging had to be called off in favor of
setting up for the fair itself.

Schulze said some of the books may never be sorted, or even see
the fair itself. He stood outside the Y’s gymnasium, which houses
the bulk of the sale, before two industrial containers the size of
freight train cars.

“Those are all filled with books,” he said.

One of the most remarkable things about the fair seems to be
that next to no books are saved from one year to the next–that,
year after year, individual donors giving a bag here and a bag
there are able to amass more than one million books in a matter of
months.

“We save very few books,” Fisher said, explaining that on
Tuesday books will be sold at half price, on Wednesday whole bags
of books will be sold for $6 a piece and on Thursday non-profit
groups set to carting off the rest for their own uses.

The remaining books are recycled. “We’ve gotten a lot better,”
said Schulze, who is now overseeing his fourth fair, “we used to
throw them away.” He added that, “If we can’t give it away, it’s
lived its usefulness for its life as a book.”

Fisher said that where the book fair has progressed steadily
since it began in 1978, it has undergone its most dramatic growth
in the last five years, a change he credits to increased press
coverage.

He said the fair is now “probably one of the biggest events at
the Y.”

But there are still the hardcore shoppers, who by their
eccentric behavior suggest they’ve been doing this kind of thing at
least since Bush, Sr. was president–if not Reagan.

The fair’s opening evening, known as First Selection Night, is
so popular it merits a $6 line ticket, for which some folks camp
out on Thursday night, Schulze said, just to be the first in line
at 7 a.m. the next morning.

The tickets are usually still available by the time the sale
commences, though, for those who have jobs, school or other worldly
obligations.

Just be sure to leave your claustrophobia in your dorm room:
Last year’s opening night drew more than 800 people.

So save those receipts for your recently-purchased, overpriced
textbooks just a little longer. This year’s YMCA Book Fair may be
just the money-saver you’ve been looking for.

Transportation from Midtown: Take highway 44 to 55 South. Exit
55 at Loughborough and turn East (left). The Carondelet YMCA is
located just East of the exit on the south side of the street.
Contact the Carondelet YMCA at (314) 353-4960.