That’s all she wrote for library gift shop

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This article was published 02/11/2022 (784 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Friends of the Public Library is closing the book on its fundraising gift shop after 17 years.

The Best of Friends Gift Shop, located near the lobby of the downtown Millennium Library, will close in December. It’s holding a sale now.

Friends president Rita Burgess said the closure is not because they are verging on bankruptcy or concerned about downtown safety.

“The gift shop was and is profitable,” Burgess said on Wednesday. “It has been profitable all along. It is our volunteers and the changing face of volunteerism. To get people to commit on a regular basis is challenging. This isn’t a once-a-year event. It is a store and, not only do people volunteer there, but they also have to be trained. People don’t have that time commitment anymore.

“We’re all very sad about it.”

Funds raised by the Friends, in part through the gift shop, help it co-sponsor the library’s writer-in-residence program, as well as the annual spring break program and other library initiatives.

The organization has raised more than $345,000 in the past two decades.

The gift shop, open Thursday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., sold unique literary-themed tea and coffee cups, puzzles, games, bookmarks and jewelry.

In its place, the Friends have turned to trivia nights — it held a successful one last month — and it will have a used book cart at the downtown library on the last Saturday of every month. It will continue to hold the annual fundraising book sale.

They are once again accepting donations of used books, as well as DVDs, CDs and record albums, Burgess said. They can be dropped off in boxes — no bags — at any public library branch.

“We haven’t held a book sale since 2019, but we are looking at having one in 2023,” she said.

(Go to www.friendswpl.ca for a list of needed items.)

“The Friends are not going away. I want to assure people of that,” she said. “We still need to generate revenue to fund projects. It’s just the changing way of volunteers. Retired people are not here all year.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca