English Department’s used book sale raises $500

With about 1,600 used books ready to be sold, the University of South Dakota’s first English Graduate Student Used Books Sale sold more literature than expected Nov. 5.

About $500 was raised, with 300 paperbacks sold for $1 each and 100 hardbacks for $2 each.

Jenny Ferguson, a graduate student in the English Department, was one of the students who helped at the book sale. She said the books were donated by both professors and former students, in addition to books that had been collected by the department over several years’ time.

“We maybe had 35 boxes full of books,” Ferguson said. “We thought it would be nice if we could get books out into the world.”

Darlene Farabee, the chair of the English Department, also worked at the sale. She said the money raised will go to the Graduate Student Advisory Committee.

GSAC is exclusive to the English Department and serves as a formal line of communication between graduate students and the department, in which the professors help resolve issues or implement new ideas and changes to the program.

“It seemed like a good fundraiser, like something that might be fun for the graduate students to do,” Farabee said. “(It was) also a nice chance to move some of the books that needed to be moved.”

GSAC has no set plans for the money, but Farabee said a few ideas have been tossed around. The group has considered bringing in an outside speaker to talk to the graduate students in the English Department and supporting travel to conferences around the country.

Students bought books not only for reading but also to incorporate into various projects, Ferguson said.

“We’ve had people buy books for art purposes,” Ferguson said. “An art student came by, and she’s really interested in old books because she wants to use the pages in her art project.”

Ferguson also said a student bought two thick books with the intention of hollowing them out and making them into an innovative storage space for his girlfriend.

Senior Amelia Heiden stopped at the sale to peruse the tables of anthologies, memoirs and a variety of other books. She searched to find some that would help with her two majors — psychology and addiction studies — both of which deal with multicultural backgrounds and social injustices.

“The more I can get educated on the information, the more competent a counselor I can be,” Heiden said.

Ferguson said there are plans to make the book sale a biannual event.

“I think we’re going to try and make it once in the fall and once in the spring,” she said.

Ferguson said in a follow-up email the book sale planned for spring would be sometime in February, but until then, the unsold books have been boxed up and carried back to Dakota Hall, with the exception of about 350 books that were donated to the I.D. Weeks Library.

“We were happy to share our books with the library because the library gives back to all students and, of course, to the community,” Ferguson said.

(Photo: University of South Dakota students sift through used books at the first English Graduate Student Used Book Sale Nov. 5. More than $500 was collected from the sale. Malachi Petersen / The Volante)