How many thousands of dollars have you spent on textbooks for university? What do you do with your textbooks when you’re done with them? Do they just sit on your bookshelf forever, never to be read again? Wouldn’t it be nice to get at least some of the money back?
VIU’s bookstore offers to buy your used books. They buy books required for courses at VIU, as well as books being used at other Canadian universities. How much you receive back for your books ranges from two per cent to 50 per cent.
If the book you are returning is required at VIU for the following semester, if the VIU Bookstore has not exceeded its required supply of the book, and if the book is in good condition, then they will pay you 50 per cent of the current retail price. If the book is listed in their database as required at another Canadian university, then they will pay you 35 per cent of the current retail price. If the book is not being used at any Canadian universities, but is in their database as wanted by a used book wholesaler, then they will pay you between two and 30 per cent of the current retail price. However, if the book you are looking to sell does not meet any of these requirements, then it is suggested you return at a later date to try again.
Before dragging all your textbooks to campus, you can check online to see approximately how much you will get back for them. Visit the VIU Bookstore online and enter the ISBN to find out. If the VIU Bookstore is not currently buying your textbooks, you can sign up for the BuyBack Alert, which will notify you by email when a school wants to buy your books. There is also a Used Book Classified where students can privately sell books to each other.
The book buyback services are available on the Nanaimo campus and Cowichan campus every Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and on the Powell River campus every Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m at the VIU Bookstore. In January and September, book buyback hours are extended.