‘Book freaks’ find a way to help their libraries.

Book lovers are bound to be waiting Saturday when the doors open at three South Bay library book sales.

After all, most of the books will be 50 cents or less. You might pick up a current hard-bound best-seller for a buck, or a collectible “Oz” book for $10.

“I’m amazed that people are there before we open,” said Sean Flynn, president of Friends of the San Pedro Library. “They just love books. People say, ‘My house is already full, but I’m looking for this particular title.’ ”

It’s also a treat for the volunteers who sort through the hundreds of donated books and then sell them.

“I get pleasure out of it,” said Myron Gazin, book sale chairman of Hermosa Beach Friends of the Library. “We’re book freaks with a fair collection of our own, and we feel we’re helping the library.”

Book sales will be held Saturday at both the San Pedro and the Hermosa Beach libraries. Friends of the Manhattan Beach Library also will have a book sale but not at the library. The group maintains a permanent location at the former Robinson School on Morningside Drive, selling books on the second and fourth Saturday of the month and every Wednesday morning.

“It’s like a regular bookstore,” said city Librarian Lila Held.

Library book sales don’t seem to have any negatives. People who want to get rid of books or magazines may donate them to a library friends group--and get a receipt for a tax deduction if they wish.

Book buyers get bargain prices, even on collectibles. And library supporters raise money that the institutions urgently need for books, equipment and services.

“Library funds have been cut and cut, and our group is spending up to $300 and $400 a month for library books,” said Flynn. “That’s what it’s all about.”

The Hermosa Beach Friends purchased two computers that are connected to the Los Angeles County Public Library’s book search system. The Manhattan Beach friends spent $5,000 for two library computers and donated $1,500 for books and another $1,500 for children’s programs.

Most South Bay libraries--whether city-run or part of the county system--sell donated or discarded books to raise money. Some, including Gardena, Victoria Park in Carson and El Segundo, keep a permanent shelf of sale books.

Five libraries will have sales within the next month: Lawndale, 14615 Burin Ave., Sept. 18, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in conjunction with the city’s Fun Fair at the Civic Center; Inglewood, 101 W. Manchester Blvd., Sept. 24, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Lomita, 24200 Narbonne Ave., Oct. 1, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Hawthorne, 12700 S. Grevillea Ave., Oct. 1, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Torrance, 3301 Torrance Blvd., Oct. 8, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Many people go to library sales dreaming that they’ll find a valuable first edition or other rarity. It’s a long shot, but it has happened.

Gazin recalls a first-edition “Black Beauty,” worth about $40, that was offered for 50 cents at a Hermosa Beach sale a few years ago. But it didn’t fetch even that paltry sum, he said: “Somebody stole it.”

In most cases, however, special books are offered at special prices.

The Manhattan Beach Friends got $100 for a McGuffey Eclectic Reader, the standard text in 19th-Century American schools.

This year, the Hermosa Beach Friends have an 1874 history of San Joaquin County in Central California. Gazin’s wife, Patricia, who is in charge of special books, says it is worth $1,000. Bids are being taken for that, as well as for five “Oz” books, which she said are worth $30 each.

“We have frequent spates of coffee-table art books,” she said, “but we’re hard-pressed to get $10 for them.”

More likely fare is romance novels--they’re five for $1 in Hermosa Beach--current fiction, Westerns, cookbooks, biographies, encyclopedias, textbooks on a variety of subjects; also “how to” books on such things as sailing, boat building and maintenance, computers, plumbing and automobile repair.

And there are donated National Geographic magazines for sale.

“Everyone wants to give you Geographics,” said San Pedro library staffer Dolores Lisica.

Over the years, library book sales have developed hundreds of regular shoppers--some of whom donate the books they bought one year for the next year’s sale.

And there are unusual customers, such as the young couple who had just moved into a new home that had lots of shelves for books. “We gave them yards and yards of books, the ones that hadn’t sold, because we were trying to close and get away,” said Patricia Gazin.

Then there are book dealers, who usually come early and grab the best stuff.

The sellers’ advice to everyone else: Get there first.

What: Library book sales.

When: Saturday.

Where: Hermosa Beach Library, 550 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Friends of the Manhattan Beach Library bookstore, 80 Morningside Drive, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

San Pedro Regional Library, 931 S. Gaffey St., 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.