Students entering the Texas Tech library today may see administrators in costumes selling books at less than scary prices.
Lisa Gonzales, the book sale coordinator and a library associate, said she estimated at least 2,000 different titles are on sale with paperbacks costing $1 and hardbacks $2.
There are four categories of books on sale: social sciences, art sciences, humanities and popular reading.
Jeff Whitley, director of communications and marketing for the library, said the books on sale cover a wide variety of themes.
"As you can imagine, they are eclectic; they are from every imaginable topic," he said. "We could get books from the '30s to the '70s, all the decades."
Many students may believe the books on sale are old shelved books, he said, but that is not the case.
"These are the books that never made it on the shelf," Whitley said. "When we receive books from donors, we evaluate them to see if they should be added to the collection."
Whitley said books are evaluated on their academic application level and therefore many do not end up on the shelves.
While not all of the books donated to the library are used in the collection, Whitley said donors should not be discouraged from giving to the Tech library.
"When someone gives a book to the library, even though it may not be used for the library, it is still valuable, because we can turn around and collect proceeds," he said. "The proceeds are used to enhance academic advancement for (the students)."
Gonzales said the last book sale occurred about a year-and-a-half ago, though she was not sure how much money the sale accumulated.
Money from the last book sale was used to buy a Safari electronic database for Tech students focused on the computer science area, Whitley said.
"The administration will take a look at how we can use the funds, and it may be another electronic data base like Safari," he said, "but it will be some sort of research-based tool or service; we are all the time adding new searchable databases."
The searchable databases are located on the Tech library Web site, www.lib.ttu.edu.
Books that are not sold typically are recycled, Whitley said.
"There is no waste, really, because we get credit for that recycling," he said. "We have an individual here who keeps track of recyclable goods for (the) library so we are good stewards of waste."
He said students interested in buying books should go early.
Students can purchase books with cash or check. The sale is taking place from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Croslin Room of the library.
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