magazines inc. industry retail specialty founded 1972 headquarters dallas texas key people sharon anderson wright ceo products books records cds dvds magazines gifts website hpb.com half price books records magazines incorporated is the largest family owned chain of new and used bookstores in the united states . the company s original motto is we buy and sell anything printed or recorded except yesterday s newspaper and many of the used books music and movies for sale in each location are purchased from local residents . the corporate office is located in the flagship northwest highway location in dallas texas . 1 2 half price books now operates more than 120 stores including outlets in 17 states . 3 contents 1 history 2 philanthropy 3 publishing 4 wholesale 5 references 6 external links history edit entrance to the half price books northwest highway the corporate headquarters on e. northwest highway in dallas texas half price books in berkeley california founders ken gjemre and pat anderson opened the first store in 1972 in a former laundromat in dallas texas filling the shelves with 2 000 books out of their personal libraries . 4 pat anderson s daughter sharon anderson wright is the company s current president and ceo . 5 in 2009 sharon s sister ellen o neal stepped up to the position of chairperson of the board in order to become more involved with the family business . 6 half price books has recently expanded into the outlet store business in bloomington indiana ; 7 bowling green kentucky ; 8 rockford illinois ; 9 and olympia washington . 10 philanthropy edit the half price books original mission statement includes the promise to promote literacy and be kind to the environment . 11 teachers and librarians for example are offered a year round 10 % discount on purchases . 11 each year every half price books store holds a book drive to collect new or gently used children s books building half pint libraries at pediatric hospitals and special needs clinics in the communities it serves . 12 the company has promoted recycling and reusing and the sound management of paper energy and water resources . in 2008 half price books launched a formal environmental education initiative called b eco me green to help spread knowledge about the health of the environment . 13 in addition the chain donates millions of books and its overstock inventory to non profit organizations around the world such as feed the children and american red cross . it also gives some of its books to better world books a for profit on line bookseller . publishing edit half price books publishes some of the books it sells inexpensively reprinting non copyrighted titles or acquiring the u.s. or english language rights from another publisher . half price books reprints these titles under its publishing arm hackberry press . 14 among hackberry press titles is the half price books children s storybook series say good night to illiteracy with 13 editions in print . all proceeds from the series benefit family literacy organizations such as reach out and read and the national center for family literacy . the company is a strong proponent of the first amendment freedom of speech and americans right to knowledge and the expression of ideas . its website deletecensorship.org supports imaginative and courageous books including those that address controversial topics and have been censored or banned . 15 wholesale edit the wholesale division of half price books is texas bookman also headquartered in dallas . 16 texas bookman sells trade and scholarly remainders at discount prices to wholesale buyers around the world . references edit contact us . half price books . retrieved on january 25 2010 . half price books northwest highway . half price books . retrieved on july 6 2010 . stores in az ca ga ia il in ks ky mn mo ne oh ok pa tx wa wi ken gjemre obituary sharon anderson wright capitalist chicks executive bios in 220 ky 221 il 222 wa 223 a b 10 socially conscious online bookstores small print becomegreen.org hackberry press trademark deletecensorship.org texas bookman external links edit dallas fort worth portal companies portal official website becomegreen.org an environmental initiative by half price books deletecensorship.org a banned books awareness message sponsored by half price books official facebook page retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title half price books & oldid 743419316 categories bookstores of the united statescompanies based in dallasretail companies established in 1972book distributorshidden categories pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 9 october 2016 at 15 35 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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