Withheld price list hinders AHC's bookfair activity

By Lama Tassabehji---

The Arab Heritage club has masterminded and executed the fourth consecutive annual book fair, which buys and sells books at half their prices, held this year near Ada Dodge Hall. Every semester the AHC collects second hand books from students and places them on a stand near Ada Dodge Hall for ten days for students to buy. ÒThe books have gotten too expensive and they are becoming only more expensive. Sometimes the same book increases in price,Ó commented Naji Issa, a member of the AHC. The Price of each book is based on AUBÕs Book Store price list as the book sale buys and sells books at half the bookstoreÕs prices. This price list used to be directly taken from the AUB bookstore when the latter was still owned by AUB. However, ever since MalikÕs monopoly of the bookstore, the club has been facing difficulties with getting the price list from Malik who refuses to provide it. The club resolved the problem last year by photographing the price list. This semester though, the club learned that the USFC acquired a copy of it, so they naturally resorted to the USFC for the price list. ÒThe list came late and also they did not give us a complete list. The book name was not available, only the course name and prices,Ó said Issa. Abbas Hashem designed the program dealing with registering books and selling them, specifically for the book sale. But the program could only be used for registering books, due to the lack of PCs. ÒFor it to have been more efficient we needed two computers, but we were only able to rent one,Ó explained Issa. Consequently plain paper had to be used for sales while the PC was used for recording collected books. The Book fair is a non-profit event where only the students wishing to sell their books gain money upon handing in their receipts. If their book is not sold then they take it back. Sometimes when there is a lot of traffic at the stand and a book or two go missing, the club pays the difference. ÒSometimes students donÕt come and pick up their books and we store them for the next book sale,Ó added Issa. This ends up balancing out for the club.