Geneseo’s first student-led book exchange launching Dec. 9

As the Geneseo campus community prepares for finals week, students from Professor Lytton Smith’s Sustainability and Literature: Black Poetics course are working to spearhead Geneseo’s first campus-wide book exchange. The exchange is on track to take place in the MacVittie College Union from Dec. 9 to Dec. 19. 

Sophomore Mollie McMullan and freshman neuroscience majors Megan Jurain and Tahera Stevens are students in the course who have worked together throughout the semester to execute the “give a book, take a book” style event. In pursuing a project that could be “tangible and easily identifiable” to the campus community, the students were inspired to create something that might make a lasting impact and showcase the core ideals of the course. They said that they hope that by doing the book exchange, they can bring attention to the importance of sustainability, recirculation, and accessibility of literature, both on campus and beyond. 

“We’re really emphasizing sustainability in our project,” McMullan said. “There are too many books that are going to end up in landfills, there are too many books that are being unused right now, and so we’re trying to find a way to ameliorate that.”

The setup of the book exchange itself promotes all of the values at the heart of the project: the students plan to use a shelf borrowed from the library so that they can mitigate costs and use resources that the campus already has available. In terms of where the books are actually coming from, the project-runners are working with the Geneseo English Department, Wadsworth Library, and donations from other students and community members to create the ideal setup for an eco-friendly and accessible circulation of literature. 

All genres are welcomed and accepted, but Jurain explained that there will be subsections of genres that they will try to highlight in accordance with the focuses of their Black Poetics course. 

“We’re trying to highlight that sustainability and anti-racism aspect in our genres. So, in our shelving, we’re going to do… a genre highlight [of those topics],” she said.

Because this project is such an important and large undertaking, especially during finals, the students attribute the success of this project to being able to work with one another with such ease and cooperation, as well as with Professor Smith as their support. By allowing them to envision their projects independently and find people with similar interests, the students explained, Smith cultivated an environment for students to flourish and work collaboratively in an efficient manner. 

“He’s always so insightful on how to help us, and it’s so nice to be in a setting where a professor is actually encouraging you to go out and do something… individuals and students [often] get into that planning phase and then it is never executed, so it’s great to have that support,” said Jurain. 

“I think because we were allowed to design this project ourselves, we were able to be with a group that feels passionate about this… this is something that we’re all interested in,” McMullan added. 

Though this book exchange is only set to run for ten days, the students are not stopping there. They have already begun discussing plans to make this a more permanent feature on campus for students to access at any time. 

“Eventually I was thinking about having a more transportable bookshelf with wheels that could be brought out, maybe into the front part of the union, because they do have events [such as performances]…that would spark conversations and bring people together,” Stevens explained.

This is not the only option that the group discussed. “I was also thinking and kind of pursuing a neighborhood book exchange with a neighborhood book box,” said Stevens. This, she said, would involve more time for planning, drawing, and building a box, but students would be able to take books from the box (that Stevens herself will construct) and return them at their leisure, as well as contribute their own if they so wish. Ideally this would go on campus: “maybe near Bailey, or in the Arboretum.”

McMullan, Jurain, and Tahera encourage all students to stop by the union and check out the shelf that will be on display. With concrete ideas for the future and a clear direction for the present, this student-led book exchange is sure to be a success.