The first ever permanent second-hand bookshop in a public library in East Sussex will open its doors to customers early next month.

East Sussex County Council’s Library & Information Service will open the ‘Bookends’ bookshop at Eastbourne Library in Grove Road on Friday 7 December 2012.

The shop will sell second-hand books, DVDs and CDs plus greetings cards, stationery and gifts. It will be open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9.30am until 5pm, Fridays from 10.30am until 5pm and Saturdays from 9.30am to 4.45pm.

Councillor Tony Freebody, lead member for community services said: “The bookshop is a wonderful idea and will allow our customers to browse the older books they may want to buy, as well as continue to borrow books from the main the library.

“Second-hand books are often sold by the Library Service when stock has reached the end of its library shelf-life. The new bookshop will make the experience of shopping for ex-library stock more enjoyable for our customers and will provide more income to be used to buy new books for our libraries.”

The Library Service ran a competition to name the bookshop via its Facebook page and a suggestions board in the library. There were lots of creative and thoughtful entries and the chosen entry was: ‘Bookends’.

As a special offer to celebrate the opening of the new shop, the Library Service is giving customers a 10% discount on any of the second hand books throughout December. To claim the discount, all that people have to do is mention the promotion code 214.

People are also being invited to see the changes being made at the central library. “As well as installing the new shop, we’re refurbishing the foyer area and improving lighting in some areas of the library,” said Councillor Freebody. “We’re also refurbishing the committee room in the library which is available to hire at reduced rates for local community groups.”

To find out more, see our page about Eastbourne Central Library.