Often, as I walk through the halls of my university’s Humanities building to get to class, I often pass by a study room containing, among other things, a bookcase with a piece of paper taped to one of its glass doors with two words printed on it: free books.

If there’s anything I love more than books, it’s free books—pages upon pages containing a cornucopia of knowledge at no cost to me. It’s a deal made in heaven, if I’ve ever encountered one. Each of the available books are nonfiction titles ranging from a sociological overview of France’s working class at the turn of the century to an intense dissection of Cicero’s political treatises to the development of Jewish identity in eastern Europe during the Renaissance.

Being one to care about the minute —if not trivial aspects of books, I always care to pay attention to their covers and publication years. While I unashamedly judge books by their covers on the basis of graphic design and overall aesthetics, their covers, coupled with their publication years, are a way to place written works within the grand span of history.

Returning to the study room’s free book selection, it did not take me long to realize that all the works were noticeably old. Their covers were either partially torn, diluted in color, or both. Moreover, the typefaces used were in the classic Serif family often associated with academia. It is when I open one of the books and scan through the first couple pages that my suspicions are confirmed. 1975. 1983. 1972. 1968.

I can only assume why these works, obviously outdated timewise, were placed in this cabinet by professors, librarians, and staff. Maybe they were merely collecting dust in their home libraries or classrooms. Or maybe they were texts that a certain had on hand but didn’t quite fancy either due to dry wiring style or poor scholarship.

I will admit that despite these books being intentionally made freely available for anyone who wants them, I nonetheless feel like a petty thief whenever I take a book (or more). I could only imagine how much these books cost (when adjusted for inflation) and how much they are now, if anything. God knows that book prices have generally arisen in these last few years, and academic works have always been on the pricier end.

This solitary bookcase has become my favorite part of being on campus. Not the Panda Express that’s steps away from Jamba Juice in the Student Union, or the squirrels that are a perpetual presence underneath benches or at the base of trees. I don’t even quite fancy the study room which the bookcase resides in, to be honest.

It’s stands, quietly and stoutly, as a reminder that knowledge should be freely accessible to everyone—that if knowledge indeed is power, then it should be attainable to all regardless of language, culture, gender expression, sexuality, or creed. In an institution that charges exorbitant rates for tuition, this message is ever more poignant.