Book sale encourages inexpensive reading

by: Carolyn Webber on October 31, 2012

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[media-credit name="Karina Puikkonen" align="alignright" width="214"] Chan Ho, a freshman in civil engineering, looks for more books to add to his growing collection at the Marriott Library book sale on Tuesday.

Passersby perused books at the Marriott Library on Tuesday at a sale designed to give homes to unwanted literature.

Every semester, the library holds a book sale to sell books that don’t make it in their permanent collection.

Librarians noticed an increase in foot traffic at the sale this year, which goes through Friday. They attribute the success to better advertising and a new format for the sale implemented in 2010. The sale used to be an ongoing event during the year until it switched to a once-a-semester event.

“Now, people wait and look forward to it,” said Ian Godfrey, head of facilities and collection management.

Books are organized by subject, such as childhood development, art and law, to make it easy for buyers to find what they’re looking for, Godfrey said.

Cristen Haynes, a senior in anthropology, has come to the sale before and said she likes to look for classic texts in her major.

“It’s a good way to get interesting books inexpensively,” she said.

Prices change during the week and books are sold by the bag, but range anywhere from $5 per bag of books to just 50 cents for a paperback.

“By Friday, about 75 percent of our books are gone,” said Carly Anderson, collection services assistant supervisor.

Anderson said the books come from the library’s collections and donations made by community members and U faculty.

Most of the books sold are out-of-date reference books or duplicates, Godfrey said.

“All donations get reviewed first for collections to see if we need them in our library,” he said. “If not, we sell them.”

Sean O’Leary, a U graduate in engineering, came to the book sale to pursue his passion.

“I came to look for topics I’m interested in, and I found this cheese-making book,” O’Leary said. “I have tried cheese making before and I thought it was interesting they would have that here. It’s great because you can save a book, and there are lots out there to save.”

Karen Moaddeli, collection services manager, said the sale benefits students and helps keep the library running.

“This gives students the opportunity to get books and build their collection while providing money for the library,” she said.

Godfrey said the revenue from the sale goes toward new acquisitions for the library.

The book sale will continue through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in room 1100A of the Marriott Library.

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Posted by Carolyn Webber on Oct 31 2012. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.