One family firm carries most of this city. Book-A-Holic has been trading secondhand in Wichita since 1993 and now works three shopping-center units — Parklane off Kellogg, Plaza West near downtown, Tyler Crossing out at 21st and Tyler — and each gets its own entry below, because they differ in size, in what they run and in how far you have to drive. Around them sit three independents that share almost nothing — a 1921 brick building in Delano holding 40,000 volumes, a converted house in College Hill built around theology and the classics, a flat-priced media warehouse near Pawnee — plus one chain floor out on East Kellogg and a volunteer-run Friends shop inside the downtown library.
Two of the ten stops are not in Wichita at all. Andover is a Butler County city over the eastern line and Derby is a separate Sedgwick County municipality to the south; both keep Friends of the Library operations worth the drive, and both name their town in the first line of the write-up. No two entries here are walkable from one another. The tightest cluster is West Douglas in Delano, and even there the next stop is a car ride away — plan the day as two loops off Kellogg rather than a walk.
What separates Wichita from a metro twice its size is how flat the prices are. Every book, CD and DVD at the Meridian Avenue warehouse costs $1.25; the Friends sell by the bag at $5 a fill; the Delano shop publishes its trade percentages on a policies page instead of making you ask. That flatness moves the whole game to picking rather than haggling, which is exactly the condition a scanner is built for.
Used bookstoresBook-A-Holic Parklane
924 S Oliver Ave, Wichita, KS 67218
The company calls this its East branch, one block south of Kellogg in the Parklane Shopping Center, and puts the floor at 15,000 square feet of books, media, games and gifts. Wichita Mom printed all three Book-A-Holic addresses in a rundown of the city's bookstores dated January 1, 2026, with the warning that current bestsellers are the one thing that rarely turns up. Selling needs no appointment at any of the three counters — walk in with books, movies or music during trading hours and a buyer looks them over — and teachers who join the rewards program take 20 percent off daily. Loc8NearMe and Where To Buy Puzzles both list the same weekly grid here, open at nine and shut at eight on six days.
Hours : Mon–Sat 9am–8pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresBook-A-Holic Plaza West
601 N West St Ste 216, Wichita, KS 67203
A few minutes from downtown by the operator's own reckoning, in the Plaza West Shopping Center, and the only one of the three units with a warehouse behind the shop floor. Book-A-Holic posted on April 28, 2026 that day one of what it called its Spring Warehouse Sale was live here — $10 to fill a bag with anything held past the warehouse doors, West Street location only. The store had listed an identical run for Saturday, June 28, 2025, that time 9am to 6pm and again excluding everything shelved out front. The Visit Wichita listing and Where To Buy Puzzles agree on the ordinary week, which matches the other two branches.
Hours : Mon–Sat 9am–8pm, Sun noon–5pmWebsite Used bookstoresAl's Old & New Book Store
1700 W Douglas Ave, Wichita, KS 67203
Trading under this name since 1957 and owned by Anita Siemer since 2005, in a 1921 brick building with a tin ceiling where Millwood meets West Douglas in Delano. The Wichita Business Journal profiled Siemer and the shop on August 20, 2026; Wichita By E.B. had walked in on February 22, 2025 and counted roughly 40,000 new and used volumes, with signed copies, first editions, Easton Press and Folio Society kept in glass cases by the counter. Trade terms are posted rather than negotiated: 25 percent of retail on mass-market paperbacks, 20 percent on larger paperbacks, 33 percent of the projected selling price on hardcovers, and never more than half of any purchase payable in credit. Outright buying is narrower — clean hardcovers the shop is short of at the time, nothing smoky or musty, and romance and mass-market fiction taken in trade only.
Hours : Tue–Sat 10am–5:30pmWebsite Flat-price media warehouseICTBooks
2243 S Meridian Ave Ste 116, Wichita, KS 67213
Everything carries the same tag. The store's own posts put books, CDs and DVDs at $1.25, Blu-rays at $2 and video games at $3, and its homepage counts over 50,000 used items in the unit near Pawnee and Meridian. Wichita By E.B. wrote the place up on January 4, 2026, shortly after the move to South Meridian, describing shelves sorted by genre alongside open bins you dig through like a bin store. Two things from its own FAQ are worth knowing before the drive: there is no inventory system to phone against, and donations are not being accepted at present.
Hours : Thu–Sun 10:30am–5:30pmWebsite Permanent Friends shopFriends of the Wichita Public Library Used Bookstore
Advanced Learning Library, 711 W 2nd St N, Wichita, KS 67203
A permanent room inside the Advanced Learning Library on West 2nd Street North, beside the book return, staffed start to finish by volunteers the Friends are still openly recruiting. Stock comes from public donations and from books the library has pulled out of circulation, and the shop prices copy by copy rather than by the bag. The Friends set their next public sale for Saturday, November 21, 2026 from 10am to 2pm, with paying members admitted the evening before, Friday November 20 from 4:30 to 6:30; they reckon about 10,000 books per sale and state flatly that unsold stock is never carried over to the next one. At those sales the unit is a bag — bring a Friends bag or buy one for $5, then fill it for $5 — while individual copies run $1 to $5, and the shop keeps its own prices throughout.
Hours : Mon–Sat 10:30am–4:30pmWebsite Where can I find cheap used books in Wichita?
ICTBooks on South Meridian, and nothing else is within reach of it. Every book in the building costs $1.25 — the same as a CD or DVD, with Blu-rays at $2 — across a stock the store counts at more than 50,000 items, and Wichita By E.B. described the layout on January 4, 2026 as genre shelves plus open bins to dig through. The catch is four trading days a week, Thursday to Sunday, 10:30am to 5:30pm. Next cheapest is the Friends of the Wichita Public Library shop inside the Advanced Learning Library, where copies run $1 to $5 and the periodic bag sales drop that to $5 for whatever fits, and after that the $10 fill-a-bag warehouse clearances Book-A-Holic runs at its West Street unit, most recently on April 28, 2026.
Where do I sell used books in Wichita?
Three counters, and they want different things. Book-A-Holic takes books, movies and music at all three of its shops without an appointment, which is the easiest place to unload volume. Al's in Delano is the one that publishes numbers — 25 percent of retail on mass-market paperbacks, 20 percent on larger paperbacks, 33 percent of the projected selling price on hardcovers, paid in trade credit that cannot cover more than half of a purchase — and it buys outright only where it is short of clean hardcover stock it already carries, refusing anything smoky or musty. Half Price Books on East Kellogg evaluates in person and settles at the desk before you go. Do the sorting before you load the car. Line the boxes up against a wall and give BiblioScan one frame holding a whole shelf: it reads out every title in the picture and tags whatever it recognizes with what that edition is fetching right now. Half a dozen will justify an individual listing; the rest belong in the crate somebody buys by the box. Sorting that out on the hallway floor beats discovering it at a buy desk.
Which day is best for book hunting in Wichita?
Saturday, by a wide margin. All three Book-A-Holics run nine to eight, Al's is open its full 10am to 5:30pm, ICTBooks is trading, Eighth Day Books runs to six, Half Price Books to eight, and the Friends shop downtown keeps its 10:30 to 4:30 window — that is every stop on this page except the two suburban sales. Sunday drops Al's, Eighth Day and the Friends shop, but ICTBooks keeps its usual 10:30 to 5:30 while the chain floor and the Book-A-Holic units run shorter afternoons. Monday through Wednesday is the dead zone: ICTBooks is shut outright three days a week, and Al's does not open on Mondays either, so use those days to photograph and list what is already boxed.
When is the Friends of the Library sale in Wichita?
Three separate Friends groups run one within reach of the city, and only one of them is inside the Wichita limits. The Friends of the Wichita Public Library have put their next one on November 21, 2026 — a Saturday, 10am until 2pm at the Advanced Learning Library — with paying members let in the evening before, Friday November 20, 4:30 to 6:30; they put about 10,000 books on the tables, sell mostly by the $5 bag, and confirm that nothing unsold rolls over into the following sale. Their permanent shop in the same building trades Monday to Saturday, 10:30am to 4:30pm, and keeps its own pricing even during a sale. Out of town, Derby ran July 17 to 19, 2026 with a members-only Friday evening and a Sunday bag session, and Andover held its one-day summer sale on July 29, 2026 after taking October 23 to 25 for the fall edition in 2025.