Vinyl in the Woods rides the rebirth of the classic medium.

According to the Recording Industry Association of America, record sales are booming: From 2007 to 2008, vinyl LP and EP sales rose by 124 percent – digital sales, meanwhile, rose just 30 percent – and that doesn’t include used or independent sales.

As a result, over the past few years, mom-and-pop record shops have been resurrected, independent vinyl-only record labels are popping as quickly as Starbucks, and turntable sales have gone from nil to numerous – the New York-based online music retailer Insound.com reported a turntable sales increase of 200 percent in 2008.

A couple of years ago, there was even a special day dedicated to the vinyl rush: Record Store Day commemorates the “unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally.” The celebration has spawned special vinyl releases made exclusively for the one-day event and has attracted many big-name artists to make special in-store appearences.

Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins played at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles this past Record Store Day. “I used to work at an indie record shop,” he said, “so I’ll always have a soft spot for the places where I still go to find the most vital music.”

Saturday’s daylong Vinyl in the Woods at the Henry Miller Library will, like Record Store Day, honor the onetime-forgotten audio format that can now bring a 22-year-old DJ together with an old-timer who never owned a CD player.

A multitude of more than a dozen vendors – including Drag City, Amoeba, Monterey’s Vinyl Revolution, B Music/Finders Keepers and Origami Vinyl – will be slinging mass quantities of used and new LPs and EPs.

Neil Schield was one of the folks who foresaw vinyl’s future rise from obscurity, opening his own shop/label Origami Vinyl about a year ago after he was laid off from a digital music distribution. The Echo Park store, which owns an inventory of 90 percent new vinyl, has even lured in The Who’s Pete Townshend there after he read about the operation online.

“[Vinyl] is a far superior format and the art is fun to look at,” Schield says. “The iPod has its place, but the whole experience of listening to vinyl at home is much better.”

Schield – who says some of Origami’s current bestsellers are Wild Nothing, Ariel Pink and The National – plans on hauling a selection of mostly Los Angeles-based bands up the coast, like Fool’s Gold and Kissing Cousins. But he’s also bringing a small collection of handpicked used nuggets, including a rare, early Modest Mouse, a first edition Pavement LP and a bunch of Neil Young.

“[Vinyl in the Woods] will be a celebration of the format and for some people it will be an introduction to vinyl,” Schield says. “It will also be a great place for people to discover music and check out all the different personalities behind the independent shops.”

The Mystery Lights, San Francisco psych-rockers Seventeen Evergreen and a mass amount of DJs will perform. There will also be a screening of a surprise rock and roll movie and food from Babaloo – a Carmel Valley organic Cuban operation – to keep the party spinning.

VINYL IN THE WOODS happens 11am-11pm Saturday, July 3, at the Henry Miller Library, a quarter mile south of Nepenthe Restaurant on Highway 1, Big Sur. $3 donation. 667-2574.