Baton Rouge residents and LSU students gathered at the Book Bazaar from March 17-20 at the John M. Parker Agricultural Coliseum, an annual event organized by the LSU Library to sell used books at affordable prices.

Joan Vogel has volunteered at LSU’s Book Bazaar for five years, and her passion for helping sell books has only grown. The books are donated by the Baton Rouge community to the LSU Book Barn. 

“It’s just such a wonderful family event to help build libraries at home,” Vogel said.

Preparation for the event took two days for volunteers to sort, discard and display books. Stretched across the coliseum, books were categorized by genre for guests to look through.

The genre with the most books was the hobbies genre, and Vogel unloaded 142 cases of books and sorted them into smaller sections such as parenting, decorating or sports. The second-largest genre was cooking.

Sociology and criminology freshman Jayme Wolfe heard about the event from her friend. Wolfe found herself in the history section the most because she hopes to build a collection of books for when she graduates.

“Especially in the history section, there’s so much to learn, so it’s good that the Book Bazaar encourages that with students. LSU should do this all the time,” Wolfe said.

Out of the armful of books she hulled around, Wolfe was most excited for one book about the Kennedy family and the various scandals surrounding many family members. The hardcover book, titled “The Kennedys and American Drama,” was only $2.

The event had a special deal where customers could pay $5 and fill a cardboard box roughly 16 inches long, 12 inches wide and 8 inches high with as many books they could fit instead of paying the individual price of each book.

Software engineering sophomore Manny Reynosa believes that this event is for a good cause and provides opportunities for book worms to fill their collections at affordable prices.

Reynosa came to the event looking for self-help books about managing money. With the mass amount of books for sale, he found just that—a whole cardboard box full of finance-related books and more.

“I just really liked those types of books, and I try to learn as much about finances as I can, and it’s always what I like reading,” Reynosa said.

Courtney Frost is the Manager of Career Prep at the Olinde Career Center and has been to previous Book Bazaars over the years. On Thursday, Frost bought 16 books, and decided to return to the four-day-long event on Sunday to buy more.

“I love to read, and I love a good deal, so I always try to come to the Book Bazaar, support a good cause and get some books that I wouldn’t have read otherwise,” Frost said.