Past, present and future will come together on Sunday, May 15, at the Columbia Public Librarys Second Annual Art Auction, a fundraising event featuring live bidding on more than two dozen historic and contemporary works of art and buy it now opportunities on a number of donated items. The library is also expanding a feature that proved popular at the inaugural 2021 event, deaccessioning a selection of high-interest and collector-quality books from its collection. Most of the individual books are priced at $5 or $10, with a few themed lots on Railroads, World War II and Baseball. A vintage lot of Bobbsey Twins books, a boxed Lord of the Rings set and signed cookbooks by Betty Groff are also included in the sale. We have priced these books very aggressively, so we encourage those previewing the auction to move quickly if they see something they like, said Gregg Dubbs, treasurer, Columbia Public Library Board of Directors. Among the featured items in the rare books segment of the auction are signed copies of The Splendid and the Vile (Erik Larson), Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt) and Electronic Life (Michael Crichton), as well as a first edition of Milton S. Hershey signed by co-authors Katherine Shippen and Paul Wallace. A lot of three books from the personal collection of Columbia artist Wilfred Ferguson, several of whose paintings are included in the auction, should also be of interest to collectors. Two books that promise to generate plenty of bidding action are the 1952 first American edition of Anne Franks The Diary of a Young Girl and a one-of-a-kind 1905 copy of Lloyd Mifflins The Fleeing Nymph and Other Verses, according to Dubbs. The Mifflin book is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and was originally donated in 1931 by Dr. Houston Mifflin in memory of his son. The Buy It Now portion of the event begins when the doors open at 1:30 p.m. for the auction preview at 24 S. Sixth St., Columbia, Pa. The auction of artwork and collector books is scheduled to start at 3 p.m., and will take place outdoors in Locust Street Park, weather permitting. The event features works by leading artists in and around Columbia, including pieces from galleries in Lancaster, as well as several paintings that the library has decided to remove from storage and deaccession. Several oil paintings depicting local scenery are being refurbished and reframed before being offered to the public. The event is open to the public free of charge, and there is no buyers premium on the auction items. To learn more about this benefit event, visit www.columbiapubliclibrary.org/art-auction.