GSLIS West Book Swap

Posted September 13, 2012 by cdelnero

Even to those of us not swimming in student loans, money is often on our minds at the start of a new semester. With the cost of tuition, school supplies and transportation, the cost of books added to that can take a toll on our wallets! Most of us here at GSLIS West feel defeated by the outrageous cost of course materials. We buy over-priced, crummy copies of used books on Amazon.com or attempt to rent copies (which honestly doesn’t save us that much money). I’ve known students who go without required texts because of the cost.
This fall, students are solving this problem with the first GSLIS West Book Sale/Swap. The idea is for all of us to come together and trade or sell our used books. Like many students, the text books of past courses are sitting like grave stones on my bookshelf, collecting dust. So today I lugged them to the GSLIS West office and sold two of them to students in need. I made a couple extra bucks, and the other students got a great deal on their course materials.
The sale took place after the final courses of the day. Students had collected their syllabi and determined which texts they will need for the semester. New students needing the texts for core courses were among the shoppers and certainly lucked out since we agreed that no one would sell their books for more than $10.
Not only was this a great way to share materials, it was also a great way to catch up with our classmates. We snacked on leftovers from the first-day breakfast and chatted about our expectations for the semester. It was a great event and I hope it will become GSLIS West tradition.
Some may think it bad of us to not buy from the book shop here in South Hadley, or that we are cheating the publishers out of money by not buying new, but perhaps when we are all successful and rich librarians some day, we’ll buy ourselves shiny new copies…or not.