Ever had the urge not to return a library book and add it to your personal collection instead? For the first time, Canberra readers got that chance.
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More than 6000 former library books were put on sale to the public at Tuggeranong Library on Saturday as part of the ACT's first library sale.
The books on sale were among those withdrawn from circulation from the territory's nine libraries over the past year, in order to make way for 60,000 new items to be added to the collection.
While it was the first sale of its type in Canberra, ACT libraries took a leaf out of the book of other libraries around Australia.
"There are many other libraries around the world and Australia that do these type of sales," ACT Libraries director Vanessa Little said.
"We do give a lot former library books to charities like Lifeline or children and family centres, but not everything is taken."
Planing for the sale has been under way for the past year, with a group of volunteers sorting through a collection of fiction, non-fiction, picture books and large-print books.
While thousands of books in ACT libraries are taken off the shelves every year to make way for new material, not all books made it to the sale.
"Librarians are trained to select which books are discarded. Normally we look at the age of the item or the topic to see if it's still relevant," Mrs Little said.
"When a popular author brings out a new book we might buy 40 copies of it to meet the demand but after a while it wouldn't be as high, so we'd pull about 20 copies off the shelves."
Money raised from the book sale will go towards expanding programs run at ACT libraries such as literacy program for young children Giggle and Wiggle, as well as digital literacy classes for seniors.
Mrs Little said crowd figures for the sale had exceeded initial expectations, with plans already under way for a similar sale next year.
"People in Canberra are big readers generally and we have probably one of the biggest library memberships in the country," she said.
"This was very much a pilot, and it being such a success we'll definitely build on it."
As for whether Mrs Little picked up some bargains to add to her own collection?
"Like a plumber whose tap always leaks, the librarian always has a big pile of books next to their bed that they haven't read. That said, I'll be having a good look," she said.
