For a quarter, people may buy a book at the biannual book fair taking place at the East Lounge of the Activities Center, and which ends today at 7 p.m.

The proceeds from the event go toward buying textbooks for the patrons of the Schauerman library to read.

“Students who cant’s afford textbooks normally get through EC because they can read the textbooks in the library,” Ed Martinez, public access librarian, said. “We have a collection in the library called the textbook collection. It’s part of the Periodical Reserve Room and it allows students to check out textbooks in the library. They can’t take them home but they can read them in the library, it’s a very popular part of the library,” he said.

The Alpha Gamma Sigma honors society helps Martinez organize the books at the fair. Part of the proceeds from the fair goes to them as well.

“We generally make two thousand dollars total and the money gets divided three ways. One-third goes to Alpha Gamma Sigma honors society; one-third goes to the textbook collection to buy textbooks, and another third goes to the Friends of the Library organization, which supplements the budgetary things that the library can’t budget for. It allows us to do things for the library that are not in the budget,” Martinez said.

Books are donated every day to the library. Extra copies of books that the library already has and books that are not academic in nature are sold at the fair.

“They are all donated. Some of them are old editions that we have, so we pull out the old editions and put them on sale and we put the new editions in the library,” Martinez said.

“This year, we have a lot of vinyl records that people have donated and CDs; we have a lot more music this year,” he said.

There is a large variety of books that are for sale, including encyclopedia sets and cookbooks.

The books are inexpensive, being $2 for hardbacks, 75 cents for softbacks, 25 cents for paperbacks, 10 cents for the magazines, and $1 for the records.

“The price is right in my budget. I’m a student and I’m broke, so these prices are great. A book here would sell in a used bookstore for about fifteen dollars; I got one for a quarter,” Jassonn Williams, communications major, said.

“It’s a win-win situation; students, faculty and staff get great bargains on books, and it raises money for students,” Martinez said.