Students have the ability to purchase used textbooks at a discounted price through April 17 during the Spring Sidewalk Sale at the Textbook Rental Service.

The books on sale during the week are discarded textbooks, meaning they are no longer used in any of the courses on campus.

Students can purchase paperback books for $1 and hardcover books for $5 from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. each day.

The sale occurs once a semester, one happening in October and the second happening in April.

Christina Coffey and Bryan Walden, workers at Textbook Rental, help run the sale during the week.

Coffey said departments choose whether or not they want to continue using a textbook for a course.

“The departments tell us when they want to get rid of a book, like they get a new edition or they are no longer using it, and so those are the ones we discard out of our inventory,” Coffey said.

Walden said the textbook rental has a lot of textbooks in inventory, and the sale does manage to get rid of a lot of books.

“They have to use the book for two years or three semesters before they can possibility discard it,” Walden said. “The department chairs decide how much they want to spend out of their budget.”

Walden also said the department do not have to get rid of the textbooks by two years; it is just the minimum time frame before they can purchase new books.

Coffey said when this happens; it is because of a new edition being available, or the department no longer like the current textbook, and they decided to find a separate book.

“There’s a few instances, like when they’re out of print, when we get new editions because we can’t get anymore copies of it,” Coffey said. “For example, we don’t get copies back from the previous semester or students purchase them through the previous sale period.”

Walden said students could benefit from the books that will no longer be of use.

“The students are allowed to buy their textbooks at a greatly reduced rate, any book they’re taking the class of,” Walden said. “When we get rid of books like that, we have to replace them when they are out of print.”

Walden said the book sale has been in practice for over a decade.

“I’ve been here almost 15 years and we’ve just done it ever since I been here,” Walden said.

The books can continue in future sales if not all copies are sold.

“It just depends on when we’re able to get books discarded out of our system,” Coffey said. “A lot of these books we have them go through two sidewalk sales. They go through twice before we get rid of them.”

Walden said students are a priority during the book sale, saving copies for the students.

“When we discard them, we set some aside for students to buy,” Walden said. “We save them for the students.”

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]