[HAPS-L] Textbook prices

[Ken Saladin <ksaladin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

You're absolutely right about the used textbook market and campus
bookstores being major players for elevated costs, Donna.  I know the
bookstore on our campus has a markup of 30-40%.  I think that's where
the challenges should be employed.  One option my students have been
using lately is the on-line bookstores.  They can often do better, even
with new textbooks.

Bruce




Some ways that I try to help hold down costs include the following. (Please note I am speaking only for myself and not representing this as necessarily being my publisher's viewpoint.)

* Don't request instructor supplements that you're unlikely to use. These are very expensive and of course the cost is passed on to the students through the list price of the book. The last I knew, for example, each set of overhead transparencies for my A&P book cost $800 to give to the faculty, and some departments request half a dozen sets. If they're actually going to be used in class, fine; that's what we want. But don't ask for supplements that will simply gather dust on one's shelf.  Especially, if you've decided to use Company X's textbook, don't request Company Y's free supplements just because they'd be nice to have available for lecture. 

* Don't order student supplements (bundled with the book or sold separately) unless they're truly going to be used as an integral part of the course, or at least without making it clear that they are optional or just for personal reference. Don't let students feel they HAVE to purchase something that turns out never to be used in the course. In A&P, the only things I order are the parent textbook and a photographic cadaver atlas. (In the fall, I'm going to replace the latter with an interactive CD-ROM set, "Anatomy & Physiology Revealed," but it covers much more than an atlas does and at significantly lower cost.)

* Don't request complimentary copies just because they'd be nice to have for personal reference. In my naive younger years, I tended to look at comp copies as a perquisite of being a professor -- "Cool! I can get free books!"  But that was a lapse in judgment. It's simply not ethical to request comp copies that you're not going to seriously consider for course adoption. And if you do request a comp copy and then don't adopt it, it would at least be a nice gesture -- some return for the publisher's generosity -- to return some feedback on the book that the editor and author might benefit from, such as a reason why you chose Book X over theirs.

* Never sell comp copies to the book buyers who roam the campus. I confess to another lapse in judgment where I did that in my first 2 or 3 years; it seemed neat to get $45 in cash for comp copies I wasn't using. I hadn't really thought about the issue back then. These people will tell you that they're saving the students money by putting these unused copies into circulation. But when's the last time you saw a campus bookstore selling the same title at two different prices based on whether they were purchased from the publisher's distributor, or whether they were comp copies sold into circulation. It doesn't happen -- comp copies wind up being sold at the same price anyway, and the only people benefitting are those who traffic in them. I keep my comp copies and when they have been superseded by newer editions, I give them to students, often as rewards for exceptional work in a class (highest midterm average and other such occasions). Students are delighted to get them as a t
oken of recognition, it boosts class morale a little,and it doesn't undercut the publisher's sales or an author's royalties.


I don't know how much these practices will favorably affect (reduce) textbook prices; they'd probably have to become widespread to have a measurable impact. But I think we should try to raise awareness of how some faculty practices contribute to textbook prices, and what we should to do minimize this.

Ken