The life of a donated book
The life of a donated book is a curious one. The annual UQ Alumni Book Fair is a community favourite for local book lovers, but what exactly is the process that books go through before they make it to the sales floor?
The journey begins with ‘Book Fairies’ – the generous members of the community who donate their pre-loved books. Once received, the UQ Alumni Book Fair volunteers then carefully sort books into over 400 different subsections.
As Brisbane’s longest-running book fair, the UQ Alumni Book Fair is unique, as every item for sale is individually sorted and priced.
The Book Fair Convenor, Gary Lambrides, leads a team of enthusiastic Book Group volunteers who dedicate time each week to sorting through donated books year-round.
Gary Lambrides and a fellow volunteer unload boxes of books. Image: Anjanette Hudson
Gary Lambrides and a fellow volunteer unload boxes of books. Image: Anjanette Hudson
“There are about 40 convenors here, and they together manage about 400 categories,” Lambrides said.
“The protocol is that you look at every book with your experience and decide how much you would sell each item for.”
The Alumni Friends volunteer team consists of retired teachers, lecturers, mathematicians, researchers and more, all with two things in common – a love for books and a connection to UQ.
The books undergo a meticulous sorting process at UQ’s Long Pocket Campus, in a building that was previously an old CSIRO facility.
All the books are sorted into different categories, researched, priced, loaded onto pallets and eventually transported to the Book Fair.
Book topics can include anything from ‘religion’ and ‘Australiana’ to quirkier categories like ‘languages – arcane, obscure, for the polyglot.’
Not all books that are donated make it to the fair; some may be too damaged, or duplicates of previous best-sellers. Luckily, the Book Group members have adopted a sustainable approach to dealing with any excess books.
“While our preference is of course to always find a new home for a book, it’s not always possible. One of our values is that we love to repurpose books, never sending any to landfill, if possible.”
“If a book is damaged, we’re quite comfortable putting them through a pulping process, because that’s a sustainable process,” Lambrides said.
Background image: Book group coordinator, Gary Lambrides. Image credit: Anjanette Hudson
Excess books are often donated to people in areas that have faced natural disasters, such as Lismore after the recent floods.
Volunteers sorting through donated books. Image: Anjanette Hudson
The Book Group members also seek out communities that would benefit from excess books, such as schools and families in Tonga and Papua New Guinea, as well as a program connecting prison inmates with their children.
“We’ve just donated books to a correctional centre that has a program where inmates are encouraged to read a book to their child, which is then recorded on a CD and sent, along with the book, to their families.”
“It’s a means of communication between the person in the correctional centre and their child at home,” Lambrides said.
“The book itself is given as a donation to the child, as well as the recording of their parent reading that book for their child.”
Some of the treasures that can be found at the UQ Alumni Book Fair. Image: Anjanette Hudson
Even though not all books make it to the halls of the UQ Centre, rest assured that with over 110,000 books, DVDs, CDs, and more on offer at the UQ Alumni Book Fair this year, there are more than enough reasons to excite all book lovers and collectors.
The UQ Alumni Book Fair takes place from Friday 29 April to Monday 2 May in The UQ Centre.
Volunteers sorting through donated books. Image: Anjanette Hudson
Volunteers sorting through donated books. Image: Anjanette Hudson
Some of the treasures that can be found at the UQ Alumni Book Fair. Image: Anjanette Hudson
Some of the treasures that can be found at the UQ Alumni Book Fair. Image: Anjanette Hudson
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