Lovers Of Written Word Inspire Success Story Of Edie’s Book Shop

In its early years, Edie’s offered books for sale on the library’s main floor just once a year, with volumes placed in cardboard boxes. Visitors to the library could rummage through them to find the books they wanted.

Today, Edie’s Book Shop, appropriately named after Edith B. Siegrist, whose estate helped finance a major expansion to the library, is located in the basement of the building.

Siegrist’s financial donation after her death helped the City renovate and expand the library to 22,890 square feet. Before, the library’s space was approximately 11,000 square feet. The newly expanded library was dedicated in 2013.

The expansion gave the Friends of the Edith B. Siegrist Vermillion Public Library a permanent home for Edie’s Book Shop in the basement of the library building. It also gave the Friends the space to create a setting that actually look and works like a book shop.

The large basement space contains rows of bookshelves that are filled with books. The shelves are clearly identified to help shoppers know the types of books they contain – from fiction and non-fiction, children’s books and those of weightier subjects such as history or science.

There are also titles available for the do-it-yourselfers interested in woodworking or barbecuing or gardening.

Edie’s Book Shop is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the second Friday and Saturday of every month, meaning its doors will open on June 13 and June 14. People may access Edie’s either by using the elevator or the adjacent stairs located to the left of the main entrance on Church Street.

Proceeds from Edie’s support the Summer Reading Program and other library events and activities.

Kolbeck said that Jane Larson, who served as director of the library for 37 years, had for a long time wanted to offer a feature similar to Edie’s Book Shop at the library.

“Jane and other people had the idea that they wanted to use some of this basement space to have a permanent space for the book sale,” she said.

Before the library’s expansion, the City had to store some books in, ironically, its original Carnegie Library building next door which serves as an office building today.

“Other libraries have an ongoing space for book sales,” Kolbeck said, “and Jane had the idea to have a permanent space downstairs in the basement.”

Older shelving that had been retired from regular library use was moved to the basement for use by Edie’s Book Shop.

“But mainly, we had tables,” she said, describing the early days of Edie’s Book Shop in its new basement location. “And we did have some boxes in the beginning, but we had them kind of separated out into westerns and mysteries and things. Over the 12 years, it has evolved and the library has given us some extra bookshelves.”

“Some townspeople have donated some shelves,” said Cinda Passick who serves on the Friends of the Edith B. Siegrist Vermillion Public Library board and works as a volunteer in Edie’s Book Shop. “We have set it up to be much more like a bookstore and so we have designated areas for children’s books, regional interest, best sellers, mysteries and cookbooks.

“When people do come down, they’re like, ‘oh my goodness, this looks like a bookstore,’” she said.

“We have a lot of ‘regulars’ who come to Edie’s,” Kolbeck said. “On Friday mornings, we can have a dozen or more people upstairs waiting for me to have doors open. We can have like 20 people waiting to come down here.”

Larson had envisioned setting aside a designated space for a “book shop” for years, she said.

“She was envisioning that it might happen several times a year or every few months and now we have it every month, except we take off July and August because a lot of people are gone on vacation during that time,” Kolbeck said, “meaning a lot of our volunteers are gone.”

The “Friends” of the library has, over the years, gathered an impressive number of volunteers who help operate Edie’s Book Shop and conduct other activities at the library.

“We’ve got several dozen volunteers -- people that come and work during the sale and other people who come in,” Kolbeck said. The day she was interviewed, shortly before last month’s opening of Edie’s Book Shop, “we had a group of about 11 or 12 people who came down and helped set up the store,” she said.

Edie’s Book Shop’s shelves are filled with books that once were part of the public library’s inventory but have been removed. Other books come from people in the community who donate them.

“The words has gone out and people now know that they can donate books to the library,” she said. “So, we’ve had people that have left the university and other groups in town and people will donate books. They can bring them into the library at any point and the library looks through some of them.”

Some donated books are kept by the library to serve as extra copies of volumes that are already on the shelves and others become part of Edie’s inventory.

“A lot of the ones that are in good shape, we price usually between $1 and $3 and then a lot of the library books, we just leave them at 50 cents each to three for $1,” Kolbeck said. “We always have baskets of $1 books and then we’ve got lots of books that are three for $1.

“It’s a great way for families to get children’s books for their kids,” she said. “We have things separated out … we have classics and award winners and we also have a teen section. We have a section for middle grade books, so it does make it easy to shop.”

When Edie’s Book Shop first opened, its volunteers felt good if $100 were raised during the two days of books sales each month.

Today, there are times when Edie’s sale brings in up to $500 during the two days it is open each month.

“There are times we’ve made, like, $1,000,” Kolbeck said, “and that’s on books that are 50 cents or $1, $2 or $3.”

During its two days being open each month, it’s not unusual for Edie’s Book Shop to attract 200 shoppers or more.

Proceeds from Edie’s support The Summer Reading Program and other library events and activities to help provide a better experience for patrons.

If interested in volunteering to work at Edie’s Book Shop, people may contact the library at (605) 677-7060, or Shari Kolbeck (sharikolbeck@icloud.com) or Anne Dunham (agdunham@yahoo.com).