SIMI VALLEY : Hundreds Take Advantage of Book Giveaway

As he picked through the graveyard of textbooks, Loman Carter, 43, found just what he’d been hoping for: a hefty light-blue volume with “Accounting” written on the spine.

The book, like thousands of others, lay stacked Wednesday on a wooden slat in an asphalt parking lot behind the offices of the Simi Valley Unified School District.

Considered obsolete by Ventura County’s largest district, the accounting text, first published by McGraw-Hill in 1968, is no longer in print and no longer used in high school. It is, however, still used in Carter’s night-school course.

“This is doing me a big favor,” said the disabled aerospace mechanic, adding that the same accounting text would have cost him $72 through a book dealer. “It really would have stretched my finances to buy this.”

The giveaway, held for the seventh year in a row, represents the annual purging of texts from classroom and library shelves to make way for newer editions.

Each academic subject taught in Simi Valley schools gets a transfusion of new texts about every eight years. Robin McGowan, the district’s textbook clerk, said new books on earth, life and physical science were purchased this year. Last year’s texts will be kept for reference, while the older volumes are packed up and sent to the district warehouse.

To the hundreds of parents, teachers and children who showed up at the Cochran Street warehouse as early as 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, the age and tattered condition of many books didn’t seem to matter.

The only requirement for taking a book was that it first be stamped “discard” or “obsolete” by a district employee. Books that were not picked up Tuesday were to be sent to a rubbish company for recycling, McGowan said.

With her two daughters in tow, Simi Valley resident Mary Bodel was scooping up a copy of nearly every textbook and library book in sight. Within a few hours, she had completely filled the bed of her blue pickup truck.

Bodel said she planned to use the books as she teaches her 7- and 9-year-old daughters at home next year. The books “are going to supplement the curriculum I’ve already ordered,” she said.

Bodel said she recognized that some of the science books may not contain information on the latest technology--such as lessons on recombinant DNA included in newer biology texts. But in other areas, such as history or math, she said the age of the book shouldn’t matter.

“This information isn’t going to change. It happened long enough ago,” she said, holding up a 1965 book on the Louisiana Purchase.

“I figure a math problem is a math problem and American history is American history.”