Everything downtown is on foot. Dumont sits three blocks due west of the Plaza on San Francisco Street; the Friends shop is a block the other way, in the Main Library building on Washington Avenue; and Big Star is half a mile southwest in a small house at Guadalupe and Garfield, across from Tomasita's in the Railyard. Past that you are driving: op.cit. is under a mile northwest inside DeVargas Center, Book Mountain is nearly three miles out where Rosina meets Osage, and the rest strings along Cerrillos Road with Books of Interest at 1333, Goodwill at 3060 and Savers at 3294, the last two half a mile apart. The Southside branch library is three miles further again, on Jaguar Drive. Treat it as a walking morning and a driving afternoon, because the Plaza cluster and the Cerrillos run share nothing except a road number.
Three things trip up an older list. Geronimo's Books on Cielo Court is gone: it announced a going-out-of-business sale on its own Facebook page on June 12, 2026 and was down to $3 hardcovers and $1 paperbacks in a post dated August 4, 2026. Dumont has cut its week back, from the Tuesday-to-Saturday grid the Internet Archive holds from February 7, 2026 to the Thursday, Friday and Saturday the live page now shows. And no Half Price Books trades anywhere in New Mexico: hpb.com/new-mexico.html answered with a 404 rather than a store list in September 2026, while the chain's Texas page loads normally, which takes the big-box buy counter off the board here.
What actually carries the city is a nonprofit layer plus one community past the city line. Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library, an organization incorporated in June 1974, staff two permanent stores inside library buildings, one by the Plaza and one on the south side, six days a week on donated stock; both post a dated 2026 calendar, half-price weekends at the southern store and a monthly half-price day plus five one-day specials at the downtown one. Just over ten miles southeast in Eldorado, the independently run Vista Grande Public Library stages a three-day November sale that opens with a paid early-bird hour, and the Agora Shopping Center a mile from it holds the only other secondhand section this guide found in that direction. Four buying counters sit between those poles, and exactly one of them prints a rate.
Used bookstoresop.cit. books
157 Paseo de Peralta, DeVargas Center, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Down the hall inside DeVargas Center, through the entrance between Starbucks and the Santa Fe Bar and Grill, with new, used, rare and remaindered stock shelved together. The trade terms are why you load the car for it: its own FAQ, which the Internet Archive captured carrying the same numbers on May 15, 2025, puts credit at up to a third of cover price on current titles in excellent condition and about 30 percent of whatever the store would price the book at otherwise, with cash offers set at half that or lower. You are held to two bags or two banker-sized boxes per trade and one open trade at a time, and unless you call and book a slot you leave the stack for staff to work through as time allows. Textbooks, technical books, romances and serial westerns come straight back, jackets have to be present on any hardback issued with one, and payouts up to $20 are cash while anything larger is a check cut on Friday mornings.
Hours : Mon–Sat 8am–7pm, Sun 8am–6pmWebsite Paperback exchangeBook Mountain
1302 Osage Ave, Ste A, Santa Fe, NM 87505
A paperback exchange at the corner of Rosina and Osage, just under three miles from the Plaza, where the currency is paperbacks in and credit out rather than bills. Its Facebook page, still posting on October 25, 2025, sums the arrangement up in one line — bring in paperbacks, get credit toward used books — and the posts show the floor widening past fiction into graphic novels and tabletop roleplaying games. Credit spends on everything in the room, new Warhammer boxes included, though a March 2025 post from behind the counter aired the running complaint about the roughly one-dollar service charge that paying with credit carries. There is no website to check hours against, so 505-471-2625 is the call to make before the drive; a February 2025 post had the patio books going out at $3 apiece.
Used bookstoresBig Star Books & Music
329 Garfield St, Santa Fe, NM 87501
A small house on the corner of Guadalupe and Garfield in the Railyard, opposite Tomasita's, buying, selling and trading used books and used CDs across the same counter. Its own list runs, among others, Santa Fe and New Mexico history, fiction and literature, Native American art and history, Southwest art, jewelry and photography, philosophy, sci-fi, fantasy and horror, magic and metaphysics, religion and spirituality, nature and travel. Ask at the desk when a title is not out, because the shop keeps a separate storage warehouse and may have a copy there, with special orders on top of that. The week below is lifted from the shop's own Hours page, archived unchanged by the Internet Archive on July 17, 2025, and the Instagram bio repeats it beside the words buy, sell, trade.
Hours : Tue–Sat 10am–7pm, Sun noon–7pm; closed MonWebsite Permanent Friends shopFriends of the Library Book Store, Main Library
Main Library, 145 Washington Ave, Santa Fe, NM 87501
A volunteer-staffed room inside the Main Library on Washington Avenue, one block off the Plaza, open six days and dark on Sunday. The organization behind it was incorporated in June 1974 and states on its history page that dues, gifts and book sales have put more than $4,000,000 into the Santa Fe Public Library since; its front page credits the two bookstores alone with over $90,000. The stock is donated and the counter keeps taking more, so what surfaces depends entirely on what the city cleared out that week. The group's 2026 sheet gives this branch five dated specials — Spring on March 28, Lit Fest on May 16, Spanish Market on July 25, Indian Market on August 15 and Holiday on December 5 — on top of a half-price day every month, and the Bookmark newsletter of August 10, 2026 set the Indian Market one in the building's front courtyard from 9:30am to 2:30pm.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10am–4pm; closed SunWebsite Library book saleVista Grande Public Library Fall Book Sale
Vista Grande Public Library, 14 Avenida Torreon, Santa Fe, NM 87508
A three-day sale at the independent library on Avenida Torreon in Eldorado, a mile from Purple Fern, and TOURISM Santa Fe carries the organizer's own listing for it: November 12, 13 and 14, 2026, thousands of books, audiobooks, DVDs and CDs with most of the books and digital media priced between $1 and $5. Thursday opens at 8:15am with an early-bird hour costing $50 at the door, then runs free from 10am to 6pm that day and Friday, with buy-one-get-one on paperbacks Friday afternoon from 1pm. Saturday is 10am to 4pm as a $10-a-bag sale, bag supplied, with anything ticketed at $5 or more left out of the deal. Cash, Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express and local checks with identification are all accepted, worth knowing before you commit to filling a bag.
Hours : November 12–14, 2026Website Where can I find cheap used books in Santa Fe?
The volunteers set the floor. Both library Friends stores open six days a week on nothing but donations, and the Southside one halves its prices over six weekends in 2026, the final pair falling in late September and late November. Out in Eldorado the Vista Grande sale puts most of its books and digital media between $1 and $5 from November 12 through 14, then finishes Saturday with a $10 bag you can fill from anything under $5. Among the year-round rooms, Book Mountain runs on paperback credit and had patio books at $3 apiece in a February 2025 post, while the pair of thrift stores out on Cerrillos hold the loose dollar copies — Goodwill with one tag color halved every week, Savers knocking 30 percent off for shoppers 55 and up each Tuesday.
Where do I sell used books in Santa Fe?
op.cit. is the only counter publishing figures: a fraction of cover price in credit for recent titles in excellent shape, a slice of its own shelf price on everything else, cash worth at most half the credit either way, with each visit capped at two containers and one trade open at once. Big Star buys, sells and trades without posting a rate. Book Mountain hands back credit rather than money. Dumont is after quality Western Americana and will take a lone pamphlet or an entire estate collection, so pull the regional titles out before you drive a box to a paperback desk. Do the sorting before you leave the house. Aim a camera at a full bookcase; BiblioScan works spine by spine across the shot and hands back the number each of those titles resells for today, so you keep what earns its listing and the balance crosses one counter in a single trip.
Which day is best for book hunting in Santa Fe?
Saturday, and the runner-up is not near it. It is the single day that opens both Friends stores, Big Star, Dumont, Books of Interest, op.cit., Purple Fern and the pair of thrift stores at once, and the day both the Southside half-price weekends and the closing session of the Eldorado sale land on. Friday runs second: it carries the opening day of those Southside weekends and leaves every retail room open, Dumont included now that its week has shrunk to three days. Sunday costs you the two library rooms plus Dumont and Books of Interest, and Purple Fern posts no Sunday hours to begin with; Monday costs you Big Star and Dumont. Neither is worth the drive if you are coming in from out of town.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Santa Fe?
There is no single weekend, because the volunteers behind the two Friends stores run permanent storefronts with a year of dated sales pinned to them. The Main branch downtown and the Southside branch on Jaguar Drive both keep Monday-to-Saturday hours, 10am to 4pm, and both accept donations across the counter. Main posts five one-day specials for 2026, listed in full on its entry above and closing with the Holiday sale on December 5, plus a half-price day in the middle of every month; Southside runs six half-price weekends of its own instead, the last pair on November 20 and 21. The group also bills the Indian Market sale it runs at Main as an annual fixture, and the calendar puts that one on August 15, with the Bookmark of August 10, 2026 placing it in the front courtyard, 9:30am until 2:30pm. Eldorado's Vista Grande Public Library is a separate organization on its own schedule, with a fall sale running November 12 to 14, 2026.