This weekend, a Boise State professor is selling off his massive collection of children’s books to help kids go to college.

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Stan Steiner's students call him “The Bookman”. That's because he has 40,000 kids’ books strewn across his house and stuffed in a storage unit. He started collecting children’s literature in the early 1970’s as an undergrad and taught elementary school for 15 years. Since 1992 he’s taught kid’s literature at Boise State. Over the years, he just kept buying kid’s books.

“In our house they were everywhere and one of the rooms in the house is a library that I built, but we definitely outgrew that library,” says Steiner.

Steiner is retiring this year and had planned to donate his collection to the university library.

“But I was told no room, which broke my heart, but in the middle of the night I thought of this idea of having a giant book sale and putting the proceeds toward scholarships, so that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing,” says Steiner.

He says it’s been bittersweet, having to sell his books.

“And just knowing that the books are going into teachers' hands and parents' hands and kids' hands that will actively use them is maybe the best thing in the end,” says Steiner.

The book sale starts Friday at 5 p.m. at the Boise State Student Union.

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