The UF Bookstore has partnered with Better World Books to donate textbooks that cannot be sold back in support of world literacy.
UF Bookstore Director Lynne Vaughan said UF has been on a trial run with Better World Books for the past year but recently became an official partner.
Since the inception of Better World Book’s library discards and donations in 2004, more than 2,000 libraries across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have joined Better World Books.
The program manages discarded and donated books by reselling them on BetterWorldBooks.com for up to 90 percent off, then shares the proceeds. According to the Better World Books website, one program, Book for Book, donates a book to a person in need every time a book is purchased online.
A portion of all the book sales goes to nonprofit literacy partners, Books for Africa and Feed the Children.
Nearly 7 million books have been donated.
“I think it’s wonderful to be able to give these books to people that need them,” Vaughan said. “We are keeping books from going to landfills.”
Depending on the textbook requests made by professors, not all textbooks sold at the beginning of the semester can be sold back to the bookstore, she said.
“It’s the books that do not have a value that we send to Better World Books,” Vaughan said.
Of the thousands of books sold at the beginning of the Fall semester, 300 to 500 books were donated.
“Students aren’t just recycling a book,” Vaughan said. “It’s helping someone economically to have access to something they might not have ever had access to before.”
Amanda Fretz, a 19-year-old Spanish sophomore, said UF’s involvement with Better World Books is fantastic. As a former English major, Fretz said she was a strong believer in reading at an early age.
“The bookstore doesn’t offer a high enough return for me to want to do buyback, so I’d love for my books to go to a good cause,” she said.
Celine Rodrigues, a 20-year-old biology junior and service director for Heal the World at UF, said she was also happy about UF’s involvement with the organization.
“This is a great thing for UF to be a part of to help spread the importance of education,” she said. “I have so many books just sitting there that I’m never going to look at again, I might as well put them to good use.”
Contact Alexa Volland at avolland@alligator.org.
