Riverhead library’s Yellow Barn is open for business again.
The used book shop, located in the historic carriage house next to the library, reopened over Memorial Day weekend.
They Yellow Barn will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Oct. 10. It will also be open one Saturday per month: June 14, July 12, Aug. 23 and Sept. 13.
“We had a really good first day,” Riverhead Free Library director Kerrie McMullen-Smith said in a phone interview today. “It was really busy.”
The Yellow Barn opened about a month later than usual this year, as a result of a split between the library and the nonprofit group Friends of the Riverhead Free Library, whose volunteers ran the book shop for many years.
MORE COVERAGE: Riverhead library and its Friends group split, so Yellow Barn won’t open as usual next month
Library staff will handle book sales until the library can make arrangements with another volunteer group, McMullen-Smith said.
The Yellow Barn is set up a bit differently, she said, and book prices are a little lower than they had been. There will be a greater emphasis on children’s books and when school groups visit the library, students will be given an opportunity to visit the Yellow Barn to shop for books, McMullen-Smith said.
The Yellow Barn welcomes donations of gently used books to stock its shelves. Funds raised from book sales will benefit the library. Book donations can be brought to the Yellow Barn when it is open or dropped off in donation receptacles outside the building.
The Yellow Barn, a town landmark, was a carriage house built around 1873 on the homestead property of John R. Perkins, a prominent Riverhead businessman, who served for 20 years as a justice of the peace and as town supervisor for 14 years, from 1878 to 1892.
MORE COVERAGE: This little building offers a peek into Riverhead history — and much, much more
The homestead property was donated to the Riverhead Library Association in 1958, after the death of John R. Perkins’ last surviving child, Alice.
The Perkins family home was demolished, but the carriage house, built later but in the same Victorian style, remained standing.
The Riverhead library was built on the property in 1964 and the carriage house, which became known as the Yellow Barn, was first restored by the Friends of the Riverhead Free Library in 1965.
It has recently undergone refurbishment and renovations thanks to a successful fundraising campaign undertaken by the library.
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