Though students used to wait in line in Middleton Library for a chance to browse through the Book Barn’s cheap used textbooks, few make it to its new River Road location.
The Friends are a group of about 60 yellow-apronned volunteers, mostly book lovers and professors’ wives, who gather three days a week to collect and sort through donated used books.
The Book Barn is the home for their used textbook store and where they prepare other books for their annual book bazaar.
Late last fall, library officials moved the Book Barn to free up space in the Middleton basement. The store now is located in a green tin building between Graphic Services and the Vet School horse fields.
Library Dean Jennifer Cargill was unavailable Wednesday to discuss the details of the move.
“It’s not as accessible to students,” said Marion Spann, a Book Barn co-chair who has volunteered there for 24 years.
The River Road location is far from the center of campus and not as convenient for students passing by, Spann said. Most have to search for it.
The new building, which looks like an old warehouse, also gives the Friends about a third less space to work in, said Herta Spann, Marion’s sister-in-law and a ten-year volunteer whose job is to price the incoming books.
The Book Barn’s previous location had two rooms, one to stack the used text books that were for sale and another to work in.
Now, the volunteers work from a cluttered but organized room filled with sorting tables, pricing stations, research areas, textbook stacks and a wall of packed boxes for the next book bazaar.
The room also includes a kitchen area, Marion said, “since we are out in the boonies, so to speak.”
However, despite the frustrations of their new location, the volunteers said their daily operations have not changed. They still put forth the same effort they always have to finding used books new homes.
“We take in about 60 or 70 thousand books each year and we go through and price every book,” Marian said.
The Friends collect the used books from a large gray bin outside the Book Barn and similar bins at Kean’s Laundry locations across Baton Rouge. All books other than textbooks are sorted, sometimes researched, priced and packed for the next book bazaar.
The women chuckled Wednesday about a Martha Stewart cookbook from early in Stewart’s career and told stories of an arrowhead book Marian found several years ago.
The rare arrowhead book, which the Friends donated to Hill Memorial Library, was worth about $600.
“We get books of every kind you can imagine,” Marion said. “We get books you wouldn’t even dream people would have written about.”
All but those rare and valuable books such as the one Marion found are priced between 25 cents and $3.
“And the $3 ones are the expensive ones,” Herta said.
She said she prices books according to topic, condition and age. She sometimes even places books on a free rack just to get people to take them home.
At this fall’s annual book bazaar Oct. 2 to Oct. 4, the Friends expect to bring 1,500 to 2,000 books to the Ag Center’s 4-H Mini Barn to sell. They already are hard at work packing books in boxes for the event.
The money they collect will be donated to help the campus libraries.
In the meantime, Marion encourages students to drive to their new location and browse the textbook collection.
“We have a good selection now,” she said.
Some of the used textbooks only are one version older than those currently in use.
“We need [the students’] patronage in order to continue,” Marion said.