New chapter for Liebig Street as secondhand book shop opens in Warrnambool

The store, being run by the Uniting Church Op Shop, will open just a few doors up in Liebig Street on Saturday.

Op shop management committee chairperson Philip Liebelt said when the store, which was owned by the church, became vacant recently they offered to set up a second-hand book shop there.

The new venture will fill a gap in Warrnambool after the closure of the town's second-hand bookstore last year.

"Our book stocks here at the op shop have been so big we've really only been able to put about a third of our stock out," Mr Liebelt said.

"We've had books in storage that haven't seen the light of day for two years because we haven't had anywhere to put them."

While the op shop had always taken book donations, now there was a physical presence of a book shop in the main street people were donating even more, he said.

Mr Liebelt said the store had an old-time bookshop feel with a vintage typewriter on display in the window.

"We could have sold that a dozen times already but it's not for sale," he said. "It is a second-hand book shop, not an op shop."

And as for the name, it was something he and his son had come up with.

"It's an old joke. I was just going to call it Black, White and Read because it picks up the colours of the Uniting Church symbol as well. My son said 'if you're going to do that you might as well have the whole line'," he said.

Mr Liebelt said it was a good time to open the store with lots of visitors in town for the Easter holiday.

He said the op shop had been busy lately.

"We've had some really good days. I assume it's partly to do with the cost of living," Mr Liebelt said.

"We've sold a lot of really good furniture lately."

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