Every year, the sophomore class’s representation in the student government - executive and legislative - get together to run that year’s student assembly book sale.
The book sale typically runs during the first week of school. This year, it was held in the Student Assembly House. Used books were reserved online at sin.wm.edu, and could be picked up there from the end of August until Tuesday, September 2nd.
At the end of the year, students with leftover books can give them to their senators. Last year, the then freshmen representatives tabled at the Sadler Center and entered stacks and stacks of books into the Student Information Network --SIN -- as students brought them by.
According to Jazmine Piña, President of the Class of 2011, the Student Assembly Book Sale collected “about 1500 to 1750” books at the end of last semester.
As of midday Tuesday, 600 books had been reserved online. Students who are interested in buying books from the book sale had until late afternoon Tuesday to go to the SIN website, search the book sale, reserve their books online and pick them up.
The website is laid out with books purchased on the left and books for sale on the right of a student’s first page after log-in. The cost or price of the corresponding book is displayed, as well as the status, usually bought or on sale.
Many books are much cheaper at the SA book sale. For example, a copy of the book The Use of Force by Robert J. Art and Kenneth Waltz was available for $20 at the book sale, as compared to $47.95 new and $35.95 at the school bookstore.
The downside is that many newer editions aren’t always available at the book sale, since they only deal in used books. Also, they often only have one or two copies of many books.
SIN also notes that it and the SA “use a small amount of the [Barnes & Noble] retail cost (around 5%) to cover their operating expenses,” but the remainder of the money is returned to the original owner of the book via check.
In years past, the SA used a method that was more free-for-all than anything. Class officers organized books by subject and spread them out in the Campus Center Atrium for student perusal.
This year, as has been done a few other years, the SA instead assigned each book a four-digit number, and organized them by piles in the SA house using those numbers, written on post-it notes for quick identification. When students came to pick them up, the SA member working that shift would use the four-digit number to locate the book in the stacks covering the SA house floor.
“[Organizing the books using these numbers” was a lot easier than organizing them by subject,” said Piña. She joking added that the SA’s main problem was that “a couple of the post-it notes fell off the books.”
Of the book sale in general, Piña said that it was “a hard process because there are a lot of books.” She explained that “sometimes people reserve them and drop the class, or something else happens. Still, the process is better than it used to be.”
Ben Brown, a Class of 2011 Senator noted that he thinks the book sale can be made even better in years to come. He said Senator Brittany Fallon (’11) and he “were a little disappointed in the overall organization of the sale this year, and are working to revamp it for the Class of 2012 by next semester.”
He explained that “one of the main ‘bottlenecks’ in [the SA’s] progress here is the creation of a new website and book entry system, independent of sin.wm.edu.” He added that SA hopes “to have a new site as soon as feasibly possible.”
Piña ended her interview with DSJ by offering some advice to the Class of 2012. “Work together on [the book sale].” Said Piña. “It’s really hard to do with just a few people, because the sheer volume of books is just difficult.”