There were a lot of shopping places around town yesterday where you could find something for just about everyone on your Christmas list. The Bishop Museum's rare book and archives sale probably wasn't one of them.

Still, if you were looking for an old copy of "Pacific Island Rat Ecology: 1955-1958" or, say, a 1934 edition of "Tuamotuan Stone Structures" by famed archaeologist Kenneth Emory, or a 180-degree black-and-white photo of Honolulu Harbor, circa 1901, then you had come to the right place, like a lot of other people.

Dozens of people found just the right thing for their bookshelf or wall at the sale, which archivist DeSoto Brown said was held to get rid of surplus Bishop Museum Press volumes that had been taking up space in the library for decades.

"The books had just been sitting in boxes for a long time, and it occurred to us that maybe somebody would want them," Brown said. Librarian 'Ano'ilani Aga started working in September to sort through the boxes in preparation for the sale.

None of the books, pamphlets, pictures or monographs for sale yesterday came from the actual museum collection. Instead, they were all things that had once been published by the museum's historic press and ultimately found their way to surplus files. Library personnel also made sure they had adequate supplies of all the works for the museum before offering up the rest to the public, Brown said.

Collectors were lined up before the doors opened at 9 a.m. yesterday, and some quickly carted away boxes of the rare books for either their own libraries or for resale, Brown said.

Others lingered for up to an hour over copies of old Hawaiian and Pacific pictures or rare monographs with exotic titles like "The Geology of Rarotonga" or "Hawaiian Mortuary Practices at Keopu, Kona."

University of Hawai'i anthropology professor Alex Golub bought a box of books in the morning, went out for a cup of coffee and came back to the museum a second time to pick up a few more. "It's always fun for a professor to come home after work and read a few monographs," he said.

Architect Morris Onishi bought an 8-by-10-inch photo of Honolulu's Judd Building, which is just across the street from his downtown office. "I just liked the architectural detail in the picture," he said.

Brown said proceeds from yesterday's sale would be used to benefit the library and archives department, possibly to buy new books.

Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.