News > September 9, 2004

By Nicole Barna

Contributing Reporter

Students who realized any later than Aug. 27 that they wished to drop a class and return their books, may have thought that they were out of luck.  Signs posted throughout the bookstore stated that the last day to return books was Aug. 27, only two days after classes began. 

This policy left students little time to decide if they needed their books and students with classes only on Monday or Tuesday little option to drop a class and return their books.

However, the director of University Stores, Donald “Buz” Moser, said that this was not actually the case and this belief was due to, “poor communication on the part of the bookstore.” 

The Aug. 27 date only applied to the returning of all books if a student was not dropping the class. The option did still remain, as in past years, of returning all books up until the drop date with a drop slip and a receipt. 

Moser explained that the bookstore only has a limited window to return all unwanted books to the publisher or else the store is stuck with them and loses money. This, he said, is why there are limits to the dates students can return books. 

While this shortened period may have its reasons, many first-year students said they found the process of finding the right books and returning them in such a short period of time cumbersome and stressful. 

“The bookstore had the wrong book in stock for my class, and therefore I had to return the book immediately and visit the store numerous times in order to find the correct book,” freshman Annie Murphy said. “The whole process was just slightly more stressful than it should have been.”

Course packets, non-textbook materials for class were also required to be sold in the bookstore.

Moser said that these packets must be sold in the store because individual professors put them together, and any markup in price is due, not to the bookstore’s desire for a profit, but to the fact that the copyrighted material must be paid for to use. 

However, Moser said bookstore administrators are continuing towork to make buying books a more pleasant experience. 

This year they added a register to speed up the checkout process, spotlighted live entertainment for those waiting in lines, provided free food, and Moser said that more used books were offered than in previous years.

Students are not alone in their search for cheaper books, as rising textbook prices are a national problem.

The California Student Public Interest Research Group and the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group conducted a study in the fall of 2003 concerning the rising costs of college textbooks and found that students will spend an average of $898 per year on new and used textbooks, compared to the $642 average spent in 1996-97. 

Furthermore, college textbook publishers put new editions on the market frequently, often with few content changes, therefore making the older, cheaper books unavailable and obsolete. 

Seventy-six percent of the faculty surveyed in the California study said that the new college textbook editions they see are rarely justified.

More frequently, books are also coming “bundled” with additional instructional materials such as CD-ROMs and workbooks. Usually the bundled version of the text is nearly twice as expensive as the unbundled version, Moser said. 

According to the National Association of College Stores, “Because the number of faculty adopting (or requiring) bundles for their classes is increasing, the use of bundles in college courses is expected to continue and even grow.” 

When the sought-after used textbooks are available for use, they can be difficult to find.

Fifty-nine percent of college students surveyed who searched for used textbooks said that they were unable to find even one used textbook for their class.

However, Moser said that the University Bookstore “far exceeds the national average of used books.”