The board of the Friends of the Library Used Book Store presented the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library with a check for $30,000 on Thursday, Jan. 5..

This is the fifth consecutive year that the Book Store, which is entirely volunteer run, has donated that amount to the Library. This single donation funds one-third of the Library’s total budget.

It wasn’t always so much money.

“I can remember a couple of years it was the price of a good book that we could cover,” said Sam Stevens.

In those days, the Friends Book Store was a couple of boxes in the Library basement and an annual sale. Now, the Friends occupy the entire Hyde House, right next to the Library, and sell books from April through November.

Unfortunately, the Hyde House has plumbing trouble, and volunteers have been without a bathroom this year.

Still, support for the bookstore is strong. Stevens estimates that at least 30 volunteers staff the store.

“We have people who shelve, people who do repairs, who do sorting, who make dump runs, who man the cashier. And people who do all of those things,” she says.

More volunteers, though, are always needed. So are the book donations that sustain the store.

“Cookbooks and gardening books are always popular,” said Stevens. “We’ve gotten some gorgeous cook and gardening books.”

“And history and fiction,” added Florence Rosenberg. “Men read history and women read fiction.”

Support from shoppers is another key to the Book Store’s success. Buyers from all over the world have signed the store’s guest book; one couple returns each year from New York to shop there. Some come to buy books for prisons, and others for Togus Veterans’ Hospital.