<p>Now I’m sure everybody’s seen old textbooks and other stuff marked as free piled around academic buildings. But I found a pretty big TV in the Kinesiology building of my college piled up with a bunch of other old equipment labeled as “surplus.” It’s been there for a few weeks. Now is this stuff free for the taking, or should I ask someone? What exactly does surplus mean in this context? Jacking that TV would be a sweet addition to my room.</p>
<p>Surplus doesn’t mean anyone can take that stuff. On the campus that I’m familiar with, “surplus” means that building services is supposed to haul the stuff to storage and later the items will be auctioned off.</p>
<p>If you walk off with the stuff, you could face jail.</p>
<p>^^^ so in other words, ask and you might be able to have it (or if not free, pretty cheap) - save time and effort on their part
If they say no, then you lost all of five minutes time.</p>
<p>Generally surplus here means that it has to be taken to the surplus department and sold in accordance with the government laws, colleges will have “surplus sales” that are open to the general public every once in a while.</p>
<p>Piles of free textbooks will be denoted with a big sign saying “Free textbooks from the ____ department, help yourself!”</p>
<p>damn…I thought I was getting lucky</p>