They are, usually, very obvious when they are found at the Book Center – covered in black… They are, usually, very obvious when they are found at the Book Center – covered in black duct-tape – and they are sent back to the vendors immediately.

But every once in a while, one or two make their way onto the shelves and into the backpacks of poor, unsuspecting students.

This is just what happened to Pitt student, Kristy Byerly, earlier this semester. She discovered that she had purchased a textbook, “Controversies in Criminal Justice,” that was meant to be a complimentary copy, or what the publishing companies call a “desk copy.”

According to Cliff Ewert, a representative from the Nebraska Book Company Inc., a textbook retail source, desk copies are books that publishing representatives give to professors to review and decide whether or not they are interested in using them for their class.

“If they are interested in it, they then adopt the book and order it for their classes,” Ewert said.

Kevin Lorenz, the shipping manager at Roxbury Publishing Company, which publishes the desk copy that Byerly received, said the books distributed to the professors are always clearly marked with a “Complimentary Copy” stamp.

Byerly realized her textbook should not have been sold to her when she flipped to the title page and noticed a white sticker had been placed over something. She said she turned the page and could make out clearly on the back side what the sticker was covering up: a stamp stating, “Complimentary Copy Not for Resale.”

Surprised by what she had found, Byerly took the book back to the Book Center and attempted to get her money back for it.

“I was under the illusion that I could keep the book; it was a complimentary copy,” said Byerly.

At the Book Center, Byerly said the manager was willing to give her a refund if she would give the book back to him.

Byerly explained she didn’t want to give the book back. She wanted to keep both the book and her money, after all, she said, “the book was meant to be given.”

Book Center textbook manager John Burns said the bookstore has a policy that it does not sell desk copies, but he went on to say that it is also impossible to find every one of them; sometimes they slip into the collection.

Burns then explained how the desk copies make it from professors’ bookshelves to the bookstore’s bookshelves. He added that 60 percent of the Book Center’s textbooks come directly from the publisher, and it is very unlikely that a desk copy would come from them.

However, Lorenz wrote in an e-mail to Byerly, “We do ship a lot of books from our location in Los Angeles and, very infrequently, some of the complimentary books get mixed up with some of the ‘for sale’ books.”

But the publishing company would not place a sticker over the “Complimentary Copy” stamp. So, most likely, the publisher did not send Byerly’s textbook.

According to Burns, the other 40 percent of the textbook collection comes from various sources, including national retail chains and some private vendors.

Although, Burns explained, “these vendors, they’re not supposed to sell them to us.”

Ewert emphasized this and said that the Nebraska Book Company does not sell desk copies.

“A long time ago we made the decision not to go out and get desk copies,” Ewert said. “If faculty contacted us, we may buy from them.”

This raises the question of whether or not the current or a past professor using this textbook sold their desk copy.

Ernest Fullerton is the current instructor of Byerly’s class, Advanced Topics in Criminology. He said he is aware that there are companies that buy professors’ complimentary copies but he would never sell his.

Fullerton said he has only been using this edition for the last two semesters, and in that time period he has retained his desk copy.

“I’d never believe that another professor would sell a complimentary desk copy,” Fullerton said.

But, Lorenz maintained that it does happen. “The unfortunate thing is that [the sale of desk copies] is not against the law, but it is incredibly unscrupulous and unethical,” he said.

And in the end, it seems the only people who lose money are the students who buy the books that should never have been sold in the first place.

The professors who have sold their complimentary copies make between $2 and $3 per book. Then, Lorenz explained, the vendors sell the books to college bookstores for half their market value, and finally the bookstores sell them to the students at the listed price.

Byerly still doesn’t know where her desk copy came from, and the bookstore refused to refund her money and allow her to keep the book. In the end she blames the bookstore for allowing the complimentary copy to be sold.

“The whole thing that they lied to me upsets me,” Byerly said.