Students can find a number of novels and textbooks in various genres during this fall semester’s discarded textbook sale. The discarded textbook sale will go on through Friday, Oct. 5 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Textbook Rental.

Staff Clerk Christina Coffey said students can also come to the Textbook Rental building to buy books they are currently renting at a discounted price through Nov. 15.

“We have a sale period where (students) have the option to purchase textbooks (they) currently have checked out,” she said. “It’s at a depreciated cost based on how many times it’s been checked out.”

Coffey said the only thing that affects the price of the book that a student is currently renting is the number of times it has been checked out at Textbook Rental, not the physical quality of the book.

At the sale, newly discarded books are $2 for paperbacks and $5 for hardbacks, and older books, both paperbacks and hardbacks, range from $0.25 to $1.

Coffey said each discarded textbook sale is worth going to for the low cost and variety of books.

“You’ll be surprised at what you find,” she said. “Also, you don’t have to (buy books) in your major.”

Textbooks are not the only books sold at the discarded textbook sale; there are also novels and novellas sold at this year’s sale, such as ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe,’ ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, and ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ to name a few, Coffey said.

“The previous semester, we had the entire ‘Chronicles of Narnia,’” she said. “(It was) one volume … that sold out really quick.”

Coffey said the money generated from the discarded textbook sales goes straight into the budget to buy more books for classrooms.

Books get discarded when a department decides the book is no longer needed, or whenever there is an updated edition of a textbook, Coffey said.

Coffey said many students, especially English majors, get excited to come to discarded textbook sales because they find books for their future classes, and some people just like filling their bookshelves and adding to their collections.

Students who only take online classes come to the discarded textbook sales as well, and staff clerks like Coffey can hold certain books until they get to the sales.

Gabriella Durbin, a senior history with teacher certification major, said she enjoys browsing through the books on sale to accumulate research material for her future career as an educator.

“I take my time and go through (all the books),” she said. “Middle-level history (has) a class about all these different historical books they can produce for the classroom, and I don’t have that, and so I either have to do my own research or just browse around here.”

Durbin said the discarded textbook sales are one of the best ways for students on a budget to discover new textbooks and literature.

“(The discarded textbook sale) is really economical,” she said. “I probably almost spent like maybe $10, but I probably easily got $50 to $75 worth of books.”

Logan Raschke can be reached at 581-2812 or at lrraschke@eiu.edu.