Erie, Pennsylvania keeps a short list of secondhand book stops, and the county library's volunteers run most of it. The Friends of the Erie County Library staff a lobby shop inside Blasco Library on East Front Street, by the bayfront, use the Admiral Room in the same building for their seasonal sales, and move the big summer sale to the ice rink at the Erie Zoo. Werner Books and Coffee in Liberty Plaza, a bookstore mixing secondhand copies with new releases, stands just 0.35 miles from that rink on the south side of town. Green Scene Thrift, a nonprofit thrift 3.1 miles southeast of City Hall on East Grandview Boulevard, completes the list, and all five addresses fall within the city limits.
No address on this page treats comic back issues as a main line; the Bayfront Bookshelf shelves graphic novels and manga for adults and teens, and adds used comic books when donations bring them in.
Used bookstoresWerner Books and Coffee
Liberty Plaza, 3608 Liberty St, Erie, PA 16508
A Liberty Plaza storefront on the south side, 2.2 miles below City Hall as the crow flies, that its owners call a new and used bookstore stocking over 30,000 titles, plus a full-service cafe in a space they say more than doubled the old one. The store's own story page credits Gayle Werner with opening it in 2010 and names Kyle Churman and Lauren Shoemaker as the buyers who took it on when she retired in 2022. Trade-ins earn credit, never cash: 25 percent of the list price for paperbacks in good condition, with recent hardcovers also wanted, usable against half of a secondhand purchase or 15 percent of a new one, while ex-library copies, hardcovers without their dust jackets and dated titles such as older health books and textbooks are generally turned away. The events calendar on its website was full into November 2026, with a Halloween day in the shop on October 31 and a board game night on November 5.
Hours: Mon–Tue and Fri 9am–6pm, Wed–Thu 9am–8pm, Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–4pmWebsite Friends of the Library bookstoreBayfront Bookshelf
Blasco Library, 160 E Front St, Erie, PA 16507
Sunday hours are disputed: the Friends list 1pm–3pm, while the library's own page read closed on Sunday in May 2026.
Volunteers keep this shop going from the lobby of Blasco Library, 0.6 miles from City Hall toward the bay, with its earnings funding Erie County Public Library programs. Its operators, the county library's Friends group, describe good-quality used hardcovers and paperbacks, mostly bestsellers and popular fiction in adult, teen and children's sections, alongside audiobooks, DVDs, music CDs, graphic novels, manga and secondhand comics when donated. During the S-Book-Tacular, held Thursday through Saturday, October 15–17, 2026, the library's event page told sale-goers to stop into the Bayfront Bookshelf for even more treasures, with extended hours during the sale. Both the Friends and the library warn that the counter shuts whenever no volunteer is free, so call 814-451-6942 before a special trip; some titles also go up on AbeBooks, and buyers who pay online can collect at the counter instead of paying postage.
Hours: Mon–Sat 11am–3pmWebsite Friends of the Library saleThe Great American Book Sale
Flo Fabrizio Ice Center at the Erie Zoo, 527 W 38th St, Erie, PA 16509
Billed by the Friends as their biggest annual sale and held every summer, this one fills the Flo Fabrizio Ice Center at the Erie Zoo, 0.35 miles east of Werner Books. For the 2025 edition, billed as the 47th, the Erie Reader reported a stock of more than 75,000 gently used books and traced the event to a 1978 tent in the Perry Square Library parking lot. That June the paper quoted $2 per hardcover and $1 per paperback, with children's titles at $1 and 50 cents in the same two formats, and older or antiquarian copies pulled aside into a collector's corner. The 2026 sale ran six days, from Sunday, June 14 through Friday, June 19.
Hours: Last documented: June 14–18, 2026, 10am–8pm; June 19, 2026, 10am–3pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Erie?
Go where the library volunteers sell. The Bayfront Bookshelf in the Blasco Library lobby prices donated hardcovers, paperbacks, audiobooks and DVDs to raise money for library programs and keeps an 11am-to-3pm window six days a week. For volume, wait for the summer event at the zoo's ice rink, where book prices ran from 50 cents to $2 according to the Erie Reader. The Admiral Room sales in the same building add smaller three-day rounds through the year, and Green Scene Thrift on East Grandview Boulevard carries books along with clothes and housewares on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Where do I sell used books in Erie?
Nowhere on this list pays cash. Werner, the Liberty Plaza bookstore, credits 25 cents on each list-price dollar for tidy paperbacks and newer hardcovers, and that credit can settle half a secondhand bill at most, while the library's Friends group takes donations only. Before anything leaves the house, open BiblioScan and photograph the bookcase: every recognized spine is matched to what that edition resells for, so you list the strongest few online yourself and send the rest to Werner for credit or to the Friends as a gift.
When is the big library book sale in Erie?
In summer, at the ice rink by the zoo. The library's Friends call the Great American Book Sale their biggest annual sale and hold it every summer at the Flo Fabrizio Ice Center; between summers they run smaller seasonal sales, such as the three held in the Admiral Room at Blasco Library this year. Dates go up on the Friends' book-sales page, erielibraryfriends.org/book-sales.
Which day is best for book hunting in Erie?
Thursday gives you the longest day, Saturday the earliest start at Green Scene. They are two of the three days, with Tuesday, when Werner Books, the Bayfront Bookshelf and Green Scene Thrift are all open. On a Thursday the lobby shop runs 11am to 3pm, the thrift stays open until 6pm and Werner until 8pm, so the bayfront comes first and Liberty Plaza last. On a Saturday Green Scene unlocks at 9am, two hours earlier than its weekday opening, and Werner closes at 5pm. Sunday leaves Werner as the sure bet, 10am to 4pm, because the Friends and the library disagree over whether the lobby shop opens, and Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays drop Green Scene from the loop.