Library: a place to borrow books, so you don’t have to buy them.
But the Hillsdale College Mossey library has a stash of free books –– books that you don’t have to bring back –– and it’s available to anyone.
“Most of the books that are available are donated by patrons, friends of the college,” Library Director Dan Knoch said. “The library is always getting books, and we don’t want them to go to waste.”
Many of the books that are donated get added to the Mossey Library collection, but those that don’t are added to the free book stash.
“A lot of them are obsolete, so there’s a new edition, or duplicates,” senior student library worker KC Ham said. “We had a professor who passed away a little while ago, and a lot of the books donated recently were from his collection.”
Because many of the books people donate are conservative works, the library won’t add a good portion of them. Knoch said he checks the circulation to decide if he wants to add a book to the collection.
“Some books I won’t add if people don’t check them out a lot,” Knoch said, “Sometimes I’ll add a third or fourth copy. All the Hayek, Mises, and Kirk sometimes have circulation as high as 20.”
Knoch also takes into consideration the quality of the books. Many have been in basements, some of which, perhaps, were flooded, so the books are often moldy or mildewed. As Knoch said, “It’s just not a pretty picture.”
Some students who know about the free books take full advantage of the great books at their disposal.
Senior Carl Vennerstrom often picks up some of the free books, and uses them for different things.
“I read some of them,” Vennerstrom said. “Some of them I get just to put on my coffee table, like one called ‘In Search of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ Some that are really old or first editions I’ll sell on Amazon.”
“He makes so much off of that,” senior Josh Andrew interjected.
“My favorite book is probably ‘In Search of Sodom and Gomorrah,’ actually,” Vennerstrom said. “There’s this really fat man on the cover in a yellow scuba suit. It’s actually about archeology.”
Knoch said students can pick up the free books on a first-come-first-serve basis.
If you’re the first one there, you might get a great biography about Condoleezza Rice. Or a book with a picture of a fat man in a yellow scuba suit.
