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Textbook rental could soon be an option

By Jesse Brown

Originally published November 25, 2009 at 11:38 p.m., updated November 30, 2009 at midnight

Bob Antonio remembers teaching “Sociology: The Economy” like it was yesterday. The sociology professor lived by one book for the class, “The Making of Economic Society.” Antonio praised the author and the book for its simplicity and effectiveness.

“One of these textbooks I really liked, soft cover, no pictures and no special spoon-feeding kinds of things,” Antonio said. “Very straightforward and easy to read.”

More importantly, he said, the 200-page book was less than $20 when he taught the class in the ’80s. He said he taught the class again in the mid-’90s and the book was between $25 and $30. When Antonio taught the class again about five years ago, the cost had more than doubled.

“I look up the book because I’m going to start teaching the course again and I see $62,” Antonio said. “I said, ‘This can’t be right and it must be a hardback.’”

When Antonio received the 2001 edition, the book wasn’t a hardback; it was still 200 pages and was even separated from its binding.

Although Antonio said he praised the content of the book, he said the steep price incline was a rip off. So when discussions of a textbook rental program started to surface this semester, Antonio said he was ready for a change.

Earlier this month, Student Senate voted in support of creating a textbook rental program that would allow students to rent textbooks for larger, introductory courses.

Student Senator Michael Wade Smith, Goodland junior, is leading the charge to create the program.

“We want to start working with the bookstore and different classes and departments to develop some kind of plan where students can come in and buy an extremely reduced-priced textbook for a major class — the big lecture classes, the 300-plus classes — and purchase their textbooks at, ideally, about a quarter of the cost,” Smith said.

Smith said the plan would have to require close cooperation between the departments and the bookstores to make sure that if a teacher was going to teach a course, he or she would teach it for the next three to four semesters. At 25 percent of the cost for renting the book, the span of three to four semesters would even out the full price.

Smith said he would like to see this textbook rental program be implemented for the Fall 2010 semester. He said the rental program could also be beneficial to teachers because more students would be inclined to take a course if the textbook didn’t cost about $200.

“I know in some of the classes we have on campus when you’re doing intro-level courses, you’re paying $180 for a single textbook, $160 for a single textbook,” Smith said.

He said to have the bookstore buy them back for just $80 didn’t make sense.

The resolution still has to go through University Administration, but Smith said he was confident it would pass.

“If our faculty is here for our students, which I fully believe they are, I think it’s something that they’ll want,” Smith said.

Smith said a textbook rental program had been tried in the past with chemistry. But as a subject that constantly gets updated, the practice of renting a textbook became a moot point. Smith has other subjects in mind for textbook renting.

“I think we need to start with the math books, the big art history lectures, the big earthquakes and natural disasters, the big 1,000 person lectures,” he said. “If we start there with those professors who usually teach the course for a lot of years, we could start to see the impact made right away.”

Margaret Bayer, associate chair of the mathematics department, said she wholeheartedly believed in the idea of textbook rentals.

“I would encourage every means people can have for bringing down those prices,” Bayer said.

Bayer said the mathematics department asked publishers to make an edition of their textbooks specifically for the University. Essentially, the mathematics department asks that certain chapters are included in the books it receives and that some chapters are omitted. The book, then, comes at a lower price.

Bayer said math professors would generally be happy to keep a certain math book for the next several years.

“I’m using a book this semester in a 500-level course. I used the same edition of the same book six years ago,” Bayer said. “The exact same thing was half the price as it is now. And there haven’t been any new production costs but the book price has gone up like that.”

Jonathan Earle, associate director of the history department, has co-written the textbook “Major Problems in the Early Republic 1787-1848” for a class relating to early U.S. history. When Earle heard his textbook was going to be used as an example for the pilot rental program, he said he was conflicted.

“I have two interests — as both an educator, I want you guys to be able to get the best quality textbooks for the lowest possible price,” Earle said. “I’m also a author so I want to get royalties because I worked really hard to write that book.”

Earle said he was skeptical because he thought there was a possibility that these rental programs wouldn’t help his students or himself. He said he hoped it was beneficial to the students and himself as an author.

Not in connection with Student Senate, KU Bookstore officials have already discussed the option of a textbook rental program.

“We’re exploring rentals as well and they have not talked to us about it at this point,” said Steve Rhodes, director of KU Bookstore. “It takes a lot of preparation and you have to have the correct point of sales system and everything but we are working towards that right now.”

Much of what the bookstore is planning is similar to the plans being made by Smith and Student Senate with the cost of books and the targeted date to start the program. Rhodes said other details needed to be ironed out, such as if a student decided to keep a book after the end of a course. He said the bookstore was heavily leaning toward renting because the publishing market was trying to adapt to modern challenges.

Rhodes said the high cost of textbooks was a reason why publishers were leaning toward textbook rentals. Some of these books can also be obtained cheaper over the Internet. He said he thought the move toward renting was more good-natured.

“The driving force is really the cost to the students, looking for that other option,” Rhodes said.

Bradley Bridges, bookstore manager at the University of Illinois, said his bookstore already had a textbook rental program in place.

“In terms of sheer numbers, it’s pretty small, but the people that use it are extremely grateful,” Bridges said. “If you gauge success that way, I’d say it’s very successful. The fact that we have one and give students options makes it that much more so, too.”

Bridges said the bookstore’s rental price was half the original price of the book. Getting the three to four semester commitment from professors, however, has been a struggle, he said.

“We still can’t get any commitment from faculty so it’s pretty much a gamble on the bookstore,” Bridges said.

Bridges said that if the bookstore got commitment from the faculty, it would incrementally lower the price to rent the textbooks.

Although the KU Bookstore and Student Senate haven’t met yet to further discuss possibilities, Rhodes said he imagined they would meet soon to coordinate their efforts.

— Edited by Amanda Thompson

Comments

Textbook rental could soon be an option

If First Management got into the business of renting textbooks, you'd end up paying the price of the textbook. They'd overcharge you twice what the rent on the textbook should be, the textbook would be in horrrible shape, then when you turned the textbook back in, they surely would keep your deposit on the book and charge you extra for "damages" to the textbook, even though they were already there....

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