Ithaca packs most of its secondhand books into a downtown you can cross on foot, then makes you drive for everything else. Autumn Leaves sits on the Commons at 115 East State Street and Buffalo Street Books stands about four hundred feet away inside the Dewitt Mall, and those two are all the walking this list allows. From there the map opens out: three-fifths of a mile westward lies the Friends' warehouse on Esty Street, half a mile south of that sits Mama Goose on West Clinton, and about the same climb up South Hill puts you on the dealer floors inside SouthWorks. The rest needs wheels — two miles down the Elmira Road strip, just under three miles north to the Cayuga Shopping Center, nearly four miles beyond that to a library book room, and roughly ten miles out to Trumansburg in the northwestern corner of the county. Where an address falls outside the city line, its opening sentence names the municipality it actually sits in.
Timing counts for more here than in most towns this size, because the Esty Street warehouse — a sale its own organizers describe as one of the biggest in the country — unlocks for just three long weekends in the fall and three in the spring. The Tompkins County Friends run their 2026 fall sale at 509 Esty Street starting Saturday, October 10 and finishing on Tuesday, October 27, and the published ladder is the reason to care: on the May 2026 grid, adult hardcovers, trade paperbacks, DVDs and graphic novels opened at $4.50 and ended at ten cents, with a dollar-a-bag Tuesday to close things out. Two rules shape a reselling trip. Reporting on the October 2025 edition, the Ithaca Times said shoppers are held to fifty items apiece because of how fast the first days move, while the pricing method the volunteers publish for Collector's Corner — half of whatever comparable rate they establish — is their own stated reason for the out-of-town dealers standing next to you in the line.
Work out who actually buys before you load a trunk, because most of this town takes donations rather than offers. Autumn Leaves is the general secondhand counter: boxes capped at forty pounds, no appointment needed, one number covering the lot instead of a per-title breakdown. Mama Goose handles children's material on a shorter leash, buying in walk-in quantities Tuesday through Saturday and shutting its intake door for each month's final seven days. Buffalo Street Books states on its own used-books page that it does not purchase at all, and the library sales and the reuse centers are one-way too. As for why the material is unusually strong for a place this size, coordinator Chris Hallam gave the Ithaca Times the answer in October 2025: a lot of the county is retired from Cornell and Ithaca College, and this is where those shelves end up.
Twice-yearly warehouse saleFriends of the Tompkins County Public Library Book Sale
Regina C. Lennox Building, 509 Esty St, Ithaca, NY 14850
A blue warehouse in the West End, roughly a twelve-minute walk west from the Commons, and the one stop on this page that fills an entire building: booksale.org gives the fall dates as October 10 through 12, then 17 through 19, then 24 through 27, 2026, with the opening Saturday starting at 8am and every other day at 10am. Prices come down on a sheet the group prints in advance — the May 2026 version put the top price band, which takes in hardcovers, DVDs and graphic novels, at $4.50 for the first weekend and a dime on the closing Monday, with the final Tuesday selling whatever fits a paper grocery bag for $1. Previewing that year's fall run on October 7, 2025, the Ithaca Times counted up to 250,000 items in more than 75 categories, quoted coordinator Chris Hallam putting roughly 200 volunteers and 14,000 hours into each edition, and noted the fifty-item ceiling on shoppers. Collector's Corner, the rare and antiquarian room, opens for the May and October sales only, and the volunteers explain that once they settle on a comparable going rate they halve it, which is their own stated reason that dealers come from around the country.
Hours : October 10, 2026 8am–8pm; October 11–12, 17–19 and 24–27, 2026 10am–8pmWebsite Used bookstoresAutumn Leaves Books
115 E State St, Ithaca, NY 14850
The shop's own history page dates it to 1993 under Joseph Wetmore, puts the move to this Art Deco storefront on the Commons at 2001, and records the 2023 sale to PM Press, the radical publisher, which dropped "Used" from the name and started stocking new titles; the FAQ still calls the place predominantly secondhand and counts about 60,000 books across some sixty genres. It buys, on terms it publishes in full: bring boxes no heavier than forty pounds whenever it is trading, a buyer picks what the store wants and quotes the lot as one figure rather than pricing individual titles, and you take either cash or a credit slip worth fifty percent more. Anything declined is yours to collect within seven days, after which it goes to the dollar cart or gets donated. The September 2026 events page carried four Ithaca Is Books festival talks between the 10th and the 13th, held upstairs on the mezzanine, so check it before you visit.
Hours : Mon–Sun 10am–8pmWebsite Nonprofit bookstore with a used shelfBuffalo Street Books
Dewitt Mall, 215 N Cayuga St, Ithaca, NY 14850
Ithaca's community-owned shop, four hundred feet from Autumn Leaves inside the Dewitt Mall, is mostly a new-book operation — its About page records filing 501(c)(3) paperwork on April 1, 2025 — but one entry in its Shop menu is given over to secondhand stock. That shelf is a flat $6 a volume, or $3 for juvenile fiction, and the store says the selection turns over about once a month depending on what it can get hold of. It will not buy from you: the same page says plainly that donations are welcome but used books are not purchased, so treat this as a buy-side address only. The Ithaca Is Books festival schedule booked this room twice in one week of September 2026: a conversation with former mayor Svante Myrick on the 10th, and the media scholar Allison Butler on the 11th.
Hours : Mon 10am–5pm, Tue–Wed 10am–6pm, Thu–Fri 10am–7pm, Sat 10am–6pm, Sun 10am–5pmWebsite Library book salesUlysses Philomathic Library Fall Book Sale
74 E Main St, Trumansburg, NY 14886
Out in the village of Trumansburg, a ten-and-a-half-mile drive northwest on Route 96, the trustees and volunteers of this library sell donated material and deaccessioned stock twice a year. Their book-sales page sets the fall window at October 1 to 4, 2026 and named Saturday, September 12 as the last day it would take donations toward it; the same page reports that the spring 2026 edition brought in more than $5,600, handed over 550-plus books to local students and passed nine boxes to community partners. WSKG's community calendar listing for that April run priced volumes between $1 and $3 and turned the closing Saturday and Sunday into name-your-price days, which is the shape worth planning around. Whatever fails to sell has somewhere to go: the Ithaca Times noted in its October 2025 write-up that Friends groups from Trumansburg, Interlaken and Cayuga County carry their leftovers down to the Esty Street operation.
Hours : October 1–4, 2026Website Where can I find cheap used books in Ithaca?
For sheer volume at the bottom of a price ladder, take the Esty Street warehouse once its markdowns begin — on the May 2026 sheet, adult hardcovers reached ten cents on the closing Monday and a paper grocery bag of anything cost a dollar on the Tuesday, and the fall run starts Saturday, October 10, 2026 and finishes on Tuesday the 27th. Between those sales, the secondhand shelf at Buffalo Street Books is a flat $6, or $3 for juvenile fiction. North of the city, the Book Store Room on the lower level at Lansing Community Library holds hardcovers to $2, paperbacks to $1 and a bagful to $5, cash or check, whenever the building is unlocked. And the Trumansburg library sells its own donations and discards across October 1 through 4 in 2026, having run the April edition between $1 and $3 with name-your-price closing days according to the WSKG listing.
Where do I sell used books in Ithaca?
Two addresses pay. Autumn Leaves on the Commons buys general secondhand stock during any open hour, asks for boxes under forty pounds, quotes a single figure for the whole lot rather than valuing each title, and hands you the choice of cash or fifty percent more in credit; whatever it turns down waits a week for collection before the dollar cart claims it. Mama Goose on West Clinton buys and consigns children's books alongside clothes and toys, handing over thirty percent of the price as a Venmo transfer, a check or PayPal, or thirty-five if you take credit, and thirty-five or forty-five once a consigned item sells — walk in with two grocery totes or fewer, Tuesday to Saturday, avoiding the last seven days of a month and the month of January. Triage the pile at home, not on the sidewalk outside. Aim a camera along a full shelf and BiblioScan answers with the resale price behind every spine it succeeds in reading, dividing the stack in about a minute: a small number to sell under your own name, and a boxful for the walk down to State Street.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Ithaca?
There are two, run by separate groups. The Tompkins County Public Library's Friends hold the large one at 509 Esty Street twice a year, in May and October; their 2026 fall edition opens at 8am on Saturday the 10th and shuts on Tuesday the 27th, every intervening day beginning at 10am, and Wednesday the 21st is reserved until 4pm for anyone aged 60-plus or living with a disability before being handed to students of 16 or more until closing. A $100 Book Collector membership taken out beforehand also buys a two-hour preview on the evening of Tuesday, October 6, limited to twenty-five items off the main floor and seven out of Collector's Corner, while the Ithaca Times reported in October 2025 that everybody else faces a fifty-item cap during the busy opening days. Out at Trumansburg, a twenty-minute drive northwest, the Ulysses Philomathic Library holds its own fall sale over the first four days of October 2026 and stopped accepting donations toward it on September 12. For a version of the same idea that never closes, the Friends of Lansing Community Library keep their book room open on the lower level all year.
Which day is best for book hunting in Ithaca?
Saturday reaches the most addresses. Both downtown shops are open, FOUND is inside its Wednesday-through-Sunday run, the Cayuga ReUse Center trades ten to eight as it does every day, and Thrifty Shopper runs to 8pm. The catch sits north of town, where Lansing Community Library locks up at two in the afternoon, so put the book room first if it is on your route. Sunday narrows things to the two downtown stores, FOUND, Mama Goose, Thrifty Shopper and the reuse center; Monday and Tuesday are the thinnest days, with FOUND shut for both. October rewrites the whole calculation anyway: the warehouse runs Saturday to Monday on its first two weekends and Saturday to Tuesday on the third, 10am to 8pm once past the 8am opening on the 10th.