If the advent of electronic books is threatening to make printed books obsolete, you couldn’t tell by the throngs who trekked to a sweltering McKinley High School cafeteria Saturday for opening day of the 64th annual Friends of the Library of Hawai‘i Book Sale.

Roberta "Byrde" Cestare, Friends executive director, said Saturday’s crowd may have even been the most ever at the event.

"A lot of people who are on computers all day tell me the last thing they want to do when they go home is to read a book on their computer," Cestare said. She said it is the largest library book sale in the country.

Stephanie Rezents, volunteer co-chairwoman, pointed to the customers in the children’s books section.

"You can see from the children, how they’re sitting there reading through these books … they especially want something tactile," she said. "They really want to hold a book, go through it, reread it and look at it."

Anne Lee, who was at the sale with husband Owen Chan and their 17-month-old daughter Sophia, said, "You can brag about finding something you bought at a book sale, but you can’t brag about something you bought on Kindle."

This year’s sale is so big that the Friends set up a 40-by-80-foot tent on the mauka side of the cafeteria for cookbooks, books for kids and hobbyists, collections and fiction. The tent provides more space than the lanai of a nearby classroom building that was used in recent years, Cestare said.

Book sale organizers stress that the tables of books are restocked constantly throughout the eight-day sale and all of the best materials aren’t put out first. Kathy Tschappat, head stockmaster for the sale, said the sections that need the most restocking are art, Hawaiiana and cooking.

Also expanded this year is the number of volunteers: more than 500, including football players from Farrington and McKinley high schools to help with the heavy lifting.

Half-price day is Saturday, and the 50-cent sale is next Sunday. For sale hours, go to www.friendsofthelibraryofhawaii.org.