On the second floor of Morton, in the corner across from the Richardson Room, is a bookshelf containing a myriad of texts, available to all students Ā under one simple rule: take a book, leave a book.
Barron’s Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms;Ā a theoretical, methodological, and practical guide to archaeology; “Freedom Evolves” by Daniel C. Dennett, which analyzes the evolution of free will; and a book on Marxist economicsāthe breadth of academic, nonfiction, and downright informative books available to students in the two juxtaposed shelves spans over 150 books. Some cannot even be contained by the shelves’ compartments, stacked at the top of the right shelf, undoubtedly soon to be spilling over to the left side.
“It offends me to throw books away,” said Chief of Operations for the College of Arts & Letters Andrew Stein. “We threw a lot away.”
Several professors were beginning to dispose of textbooks they no longer could use, or free books from publishers they no longer needed. Stein installed these two shelves with the hope thatĀ students and faculty could help others find use for books that they would otherwise throw out.
Predicated on an honor system, students and faculty alike are encouraged to bring a book and, of course, take a book too. Although Stein had not given it much thought, with the brimming bookshelves filling up so quickly, he would be pleased to seeĀ these two shelves grow into a campus-wide book share program, with the purposeĀ of decreasing book waste and increasing book reading.
