GRANTHAM, Pa. (March 8, 2006) – The Messiah College Friends of the Library will hold its 11th annual book sale beginning April 1 and continuing through April 5 in the Murray Library on the college’s Grantham campus. The sale will open at 10 a.m. and continue to operate during normal library hours (Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. to midnight; Monday to Wednesday, 7:30 a.m. to midnight).

Approximately 20,000 books will be offered at the sale. Prices are $2 for hardcovers, $1 for paperbacks and $.50 for mass-market paperbacks. Old, rare and special books are priced as marked. Also videos, classical and pop LP records, music scores, compact discs, audiocassettes, maps and home schooling materials will be for sale. On April 4, all books will be half price, and on April 5, the price will be $3 per bag.

This year half the revenue from the sale will be donated to William Carey College for the replacement of books in its Gulfport, Miss. branch library, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The library lost 4,500 of its 11,000 books.

The other half of the sale’s proceeds will be used to support Murray Library’s special collections, including the Artists’ Books Collection, the Ruth E. Engle Memorial Collection of Children’s Book Illustration, the Canadian Literature Collection and the W. Jim Neidhardt Collection of books on religion and science. Revenue from the sale is also used to fund annual Library Research Grants for Messiah College students and to bring to campus various speakers and programs open to the public without charge.

Donations of books and other materials are accepted throughout the year. For more information, contact Mike Brown at 691-6006, extension 3810.  

Messiah College, a private Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences, enrolls more than 2,900 undergraduate students in 50 majors. Established in 1909, the primary campus is located in Grantham, Pa., near the state capital of Harrisburg. A satellite campus affiliated with Temple University is located in Philadelphia.