While using your old textbooks as the fuel for an end-of-the-semester bonfire may be popular, a much more profitable way of disposing of these much-hated objects is to sell them back to the store you bought them from.

At the University Bookstore, book buyback is May 5 through May 8 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Center Cafe West Corridor (CCW) of the Holmes Student Center and 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the bookstore service desk. Also on May 9 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. the buyback will be in the CCW. Buyback also is on May 10 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the service desk.

Students must show their NIU OneCards to the University Bookstore to sell their books back.

At the Village Commons Bookstore, special book buyback hours are May 5 through May 8 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., May 9 from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and May 10 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The VCB also will buy students’ books back at any other time during the year.

Mitch Kielb, acting director of the Holmes Student Center, said 50 percent of the books sold by the University Bookstore are used.

Kielb said the bookstore has two different ways of determining how much money to give students for these books.

If NIU will be using a book again, the University Bookstore will pay half of the new price no matter if the student bought the book new or used.

If NIU will not be using the book or if the University Bookstore does not need it, the bookstore will pay based on the price the book can be sold to a wholeseller for.

The state budget cuts to NIU won’t affect how much money the University Bookstore pays students for books, Kielb said.

Lee Blankenship, owner and general manager of the VCB, said the VCB will pay at least half of the new price of a book if it was bought used and if NIU will be using it again, and if NIU will not be using the book or the VCB does not need it, the VCB determines how much a book is worth based on its national wholesale value.

Kielb and Blankenship both said a book may not be sold back if it is a new edition that NIU will not use again and a wholeseller can’t sell it either or if it originally had a CD-ROM and no longer does.

“Anything you bought, bring it all back. If it’s a set, bring the whole set back, not just a part,” Kielb said. “If we need it all, and you don’t have it, we won’t buy any of it back.”

Kielb and Blankenship both said general studies-type books are returned the most because these books are not typically students’ major books that they feel they’ll need in the future, and Kielb warned that students should think before they sell back all of their books.

“Sometimes people are too quick to sell,” Kielb said. “You might need a book again to look back at in the future if you’re taking other classes in the subject.”

Usually, students will get a better price for their books if they sell them at the beginning of buyback week before the University Bookstore and the VCB fill up on books and have to pay the lower wholesale price, Kielb and Blankenship both said.

However, Kielb also said that sometimes the bookstores don’t have the information from certain professors at the beginning of buyback week about which books they’ll be using and that students might then get a better price later in the week after the information has come in.

Students can ask if their professors’ information has come in before they sell their books.

Blankenship said that sometimes the VCB and the University Bookstore differ on the amount of money they give students for books when one store reaches its limit for certain books before the other does and then drops the price of the books to the wholesale value.

For information on book buyback, call either the University Bookstore at 753-1081 or the VCB at 758-0613.