Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette People browse tables during the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library’s annual book sale Friday.

HOUGHTON — “Thousands and thousands” of books were available for sale Friday during the Friends of the Michigan Tech Library’s annual spring sale at the Memorial Union Building.

The sale began on Thursday, when it was restricted to Friends of the Library members, and Michigan Technological University students. The number of students who turned out was exciting, said Amy Hughes, chair of the Friends of the Library group. Originally, students had to become a member of the group to take advantage of the presale.

“Now we’ve just opened it up that if you’re a student, you can come to the presale for free,” Hughes said. “And it’s been wonderful. Students were very, very happy. They were getting some really nice books that they were really excited about.”

Proceeds from the sale go back into the library. The group funds book collections, and also fills requests from the library for items such as scanners. as well as an intern for the Tech Archives to help them manage their collections. Money also goes towards travel grants for people who want to research at the archives.

Prices ranged from $2 for hardbacks to 50 cents for trade paperbacks. With everything priced so affordably, Hughes enjoys seeing the happy buyers.

“People really find amazing things because we get donations from faculty, from community,” she said. ”

This year, that included the book collection of Joe Kirkish, a former Michigan Tech humanities professor who had also led an area film series, and worked as a public radio producer.

“He contacted the Friends of the Library and said ‘Please come and take all my books,'” Hughes said. “So a couple months ago, we got some help from some students and fraternities and went to his home. He came and watched some of it, and we boxed up his collection, and now we’re selling it to the public.”

This year’s sale also includes books that had been in the Finlandia library, such as texts on education and sociology.

“After the auction at the Finlandia library, many people wanted just the shelving, and they left the books,” Hughes said.

Steve Walton, who’s on the Friends’ board, worked with City Manager Mary Babcock to have the books transferred after the buildings had been secured, Hughes said.

Buyers were finding things they liked.

Josh Dafoe, a third-year math and computer science student at Tech, had come looking for math and science books. While there hadn’t been many of those, he was still toting several books, including a Spanish translation of John Steinbeck.

“I got 80 books or so last year, so I’m not getting quite as many this year,” he said.