Saturday, August 9, 2008

SDGS Book Auction and Sale Today

I always enjoy the annual San Diego Genealogical Society Potluck Luncheon and Book Auction. Today was the day! The announcement was posted here. The food is good, the table conversation is excellent, the book offerings are almost always good, and the auction raises a significant amount of money to support the SDGS genealogy library in El Cajon.

This morning, I printed off my LibraryThing book list to take with me so I didn't buy something I already had.

I went to the FHC before the meeting to work on Footnote awhile, which didn't work out because the images wouldn't show for some reason. I kept getting a message that Footnote was unavailable and to check back in a few hours. I reported it to the FHC staff. That was disappointing, because I needed one specific "diamond in the database" for a colleague that would answer some questions. Frustrated, I left in time to pick up some fried chicken at Von's grocery deli to share.

Before we ate, I had a chance to browse the auction tables, the sales tables (books for $5, $2 and $1) and the free stuff table (lots of conference syllabuses here!). From the free table, I took the:

* A World of Records, the 2000 FGS/UGA (Salt Lake City) Conference Syllabus
I bought the following at the book sale tables:

* Pennsylvania Genealogical Research by George K. Schweitzer, Ph.D. ($5)
* Massachusetts Genealogical Research by George K. Schweitzer, Ph.D. ($5)
* In Search of Your British & Irish Roots by Angus Baxter ($2)
* Psychic Roots by Henry Z. Jones, Jr. ($5).

Peter Steelquist, the former President of SDGS, was the auctioneer and tried every trick in the book to bump up prices and get people bidding against each other. There were many excellent genealogy books at the book auction, and many sold in the $20 to $40 range. At the beginning, the bidding wasn't as spirited as later in the hour, and the bidding prices came down as the room emptied out after 2 p.m. I stayed until 2:20 p.m. I bid on quite a few books, but stopped short of $20, because I know that all of them are on the shelf at a local library (either San Diego, Chula Vista, the FHC or the SDGS library). I didn't "win" any except for:

* The New Hampshire Genealogical Record, Volumes 1 and 2, Volumes 3 and 4, and Volume 7 (all for $5!).

Not bad - 8 volumes chock full of information for $22!

My plan for some of these gems is to read them and donate them to the Chula Vista library genealogy collection if they are not in the collection. The second choice is to donate them to the once-in-awhile CVGS book auction. I have half a mind to do that with all of my periodicals too in order to start culling some of the paper in the Genealogy Cave.

This was a fun genealogy day at the SDGS meeting. I got to share some family stories and news of my blog with a table of women, some of whom were interested in them. Of course, I heard their stories too... and the lunch was good, especially the desserts.

Now I need to figure out if any of today can count toward the Genealympics...

1 comment:

Miriam Robbins said...

Randy, looks like you and I have similar tastes. I have George Schweitzer's New York and Virginia books, Agnus Baxter's In Search of Your Canadian Roots, and have always wanted to read Hank Jones Psychic Roots books!