The Northwestern Library gifts coordinator said she has a “zero-tolerance policy for books.” Betsy Allen, who organized the library’s 2010 Book Sale, said she travels so much that owning books is impractical come moving time. “I use the library,” she said. “That’s what it’s for.”
Allen said she was the one to originally push the library to host an annual Book Sale and has been planning this year’s sale for six months. Outside the small Ver Steeg Faculty Lounge located in Level 3 of the library’s South Tower, about twenty members of the Northwestern community lined up at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning for a first crack at the 7,500 books, magazines, records and DVDs on sale this year.
Well, not really a first crack.
“Before the book sale I have all the librarians come over and look at the collection,” said Allen, 33. About a third of the offerings draw from stock librarians have “weeded” from the collection over the past year. The rest are donated and need to be assessed for special pricing or potential value to the library collection.
One surprise donation came in the weeks before the event. Allen was informed that a woman from a far suburb of Chicago bequeathed her entire collection to the library. “We got 700 novels,” Allen said. “Romance novels.” As an academic library, Allen said the NU collection does not generally include romance fiction. The 700 novels lined the floor like dominoes beneath the tables.
“I think we do it more for publicity than to make a profit,” Allen said. The Book Sale last year brought in $8,500 for the library. Allen said the day’s early turnout, comprising primarily graduate students and book merchants, was higher than last year’s.
Allen sold one of this year’s marquee offerings, a 1998-2002 run of Wired magazine, to an interested professor before the event for $20. An eight-volume set of Marxism, Communism and Western Society: A Comparative Encyclopedia, was advertised at $25. The majority of books sell for 50 cents to $3.
“The prices are extremely cheap,” said LaRay Denzer, a visiting scholar at the Program of African Studies at NU.
Denzer walked out with a tote-full of books. She said she was especially happy to have found one “fundamental text,” Nigeria: Background to Nationalism.
“I’m not going to read it,” said Denzer. “I’m going to put it on my bookshelf.”
The Book Sale continues Thursday from 10-4 p.m. with Buck-a-Bag Day, when members of the general public may purchase a bag of books for $1 and a box of books for $2.