<p>I wasn't clear marite. </p>
<p>At UNC, when the student goes to myunc.edu and logs in, their schedule is shown. There is a link to a list of all books required for each course, complete with title, author, edition and ISBN. The student is free to use that info to acquire their books however they please. I just found it interesting this info is not readily available there, and that a student would possibly be forced to skink around a book store jotting down ISBNs on the sly.</p>
<p>ldmom:</p>
<p>At Harvard, most courses do post their syllabi online. that includes information about books, author, usually publisher and edition (if appropriate). I do not know if ISBN is included. There is NO reason to skink around bookstores jotting down ISBN. Students can look them up through HOLLIS or even Amazon.com. In fact, it's far more convenient since you don't have to leave your dorm room to go online.</p>
<p>Honestly, I think this is all the result of competition between the COOP and CrimsonReadings. Much as I like wha CrimsonReadings is trying to achieve for the students, I can see that there is no reason for the COOP to cooperate in undermining itself. It has little to do with what Harvard profs do or do not do. And if it had not happened at Harvard, it would not make news or get discussed on CC.</p>
<p>Marite...</p>
<p>My son got the ISBN number from campus book store and phoned it into me.</p>
<p>Yes? And? Couldn't he have looked it up online? That's what I do all the time!</p>
<p>Oh, and all readings are put on reserve in the undergraduate library. That's where a student could look up the ISBN if s/he were minded to walk there. But personally, I'd rather look it up Amazon.com or a library catalog.</p>
<p>At Wake, we don't have our books listed online anywhere, which drives me nuts. I'd much rather buy my books online about a month before the semester starts (I've found that with the ebb and flow of supply and demand, prices are the absolute lowest then). So, I have to email my future professors and ask them nicely if they'll tell me the author, title, and edition of my book...then I can usually find the ISBN through Amazon. </p>
<p>It's kind of a pain, but then again, it saves me a lot of money. I also don't have to get the funny looks from the people in the bookstore who know I'm obviously not going to buy any of their books, but instead will write down what I need and leave.</p>
<p>While I think it's silly to "prohibit" copying the ISBN, I also see how a bookstore on campus needs to be able to predict whether most students will buy there, or not. (Or what percentage will) It's essential for inventory & for staffing. Perhaps the following was what was being referred to in Reply #11: Seems to me that the bookstore might want to purchase from Amazon or Abe, get a bulk shipping rate, have the books there in place for students so much more conveniently than individual students waiting for individual shipment from Amazon. Students could order via the bookstore, including if they preferred a used copy to save money. The bookstore would be the local Amazon distributor, if you will, for anything available from Amazon. </p>
<p>Brick-and-mortar bookstores definitely still have their uses for student purposes, esp. for the foreign press editions, special Prof orders, etc. (That's aside from the concept of the independent bookstore.) There are ways to do this all to capture the economic competition from internet sales while yet being the academic service that a campus bookstore should be.</p>
<p>And a great, not just good, academic book store will go much beyond being a textbook source. It will be a source for related, supplemental books on a variety of academic subjects -- thus attracting students whose visiting & browsing habits may coincide with textbook purchase time periods. (Why not do both at once?)</p>
<p>The COOP is a strange hybrid (there is an MIT branch of the COOP as well). Several years ago, Barnes & Noble took over the more commercial section of the store, although that section is far superior to the run of the mill B&N or Borders. But there is a textbook section as well, that occupies a whole floor. The textbook section has improved greatly over the last 10-15 years or so. But you are right that it needs to have some sense of how many copies of a book will be purchased. It's actually pretty good about returns. I can understand the COOP's frustration (even though I encourage my S to see if he can get some books online more cheaply).</p>
<p>marite, it almost all cases it matters little what edition the student purchases. The issue of new editions is an underhanded way text book companies use to sell more books. Saavy students search for uber cheap older editions to purchase. Our son bought a 2nd edition of his multivariable calc 7th edition text for less than $10 and the only difference was some of the problems at the end of the chapter. He used his cell phone to photograph problem sets in the new text when he needed to.</p>
<p>Being the cheapskate he is, he always looks for earlier editions and has never had a problem.</p>
<p>My on-the-ball son bought 2 textbooks over the summer, used, online, as soon as he found out what the title and edition were. He emailed one prof to make sure he had the right one. MUCH cheaper than new at the bookstore.</p>
<p>Originaloog:</p>
<p>I totally agree that in most cases, the edition does not matter. There are some cases where it does, and usually it's a math/science textbook. S took Intro Bio one year and the prof informed the class that the 6th edition contained one new chapter but the crucial thing was that the order of the problems had been scrambled. Students could use an old edition if they wanted to, but they'd have to figure out the correspondence between the old and the new numbering (the problems themselves had not changed). . Most students decided to buy the new edition. That's how texbook companies make their money. S took that class 4 years ago. The textbook in question has gone to a new edition, and has jumped in price from $120 to $160.</p>
<p>I still don't understand what the fuss about ISBN is about.</p>
<p>marite, that's interesting that the textbook section is not run by Barnes & Noble.</p>
<p>Seems like it would have made better business sense to insist that Barnes & Noble run the textbook section (if the profitability of it is so mariginal that they are quibbling over ISBN seekers) in order to get the general retail business.</p>
<p>The Harvard Coop is kind of a sad story. It used to be an all-purpose department store sort of place, where one could outfit a dormroom or a student apartment as well as buy books.</p>
<p>Now it's been more or less reduced to a Barnes & Noble with a section for insignia clothing.</p>
<p>They don't even sell CDs anymore.</p>
<p>You could indeed outfit a dorm--expensively. I believe that, nowadays, Harvard runs shuttle to Target.
I rather like the new B&N COOP. The old non-textbook section was a disgrace. The new book section actually has books I want to buy when I don't do so online, that is.
CDS? My kids have not bought one for ages! Tower records closed down for lack of business, as did another large music store. The one that I actually mourn is Briggs & Briggs, which carried classical music.</p>
<p>The thing about ISBN is that sometimes books will come packaged together with like a workbook or something, and that package will have a different ISBN number than the textbook by itself (half the time you don't need the bundled stuff, but anyway...) Also, different editions will have different ISBNs, and it's kind of a sure-fire way to know you're buying exactly what you need.</p>
<p>Just as I thought. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The tense afternoon at the venerable 125-year-old bookstore comes two days after the Coop reaffirmed a policy discouraging students from copying down book identification numbers. Students are able to go online and use those numbers, known as ISBNs, to find better deals for textbooks. </p>
<p>The year-old, student-run crimsonreading.org site allows Harvard students to find cheap textbooks at Internet booksellers by clicking on the courses they are taking. The Coop has argued that it owns intellectual property rights to the identification numbers for the books it stocks, which are organized by course on the third floor.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>3/4 of the times, there is NO bundled stuff.</p>
<p>A Harvard kid can't memorize a ten-digit number? Or identify which edition of a book is being stocked, or if it has bundled materials? The prohibition against writing down ISBN numbers is ridiculous. If mail order firms are killing you on price, your prices are out of whack. A bookstore should be able to sell textbooks at a fairly low margin and still make money due to their relatively high unit cost. If textbooks are subsidizing other operations like coffeeshops or logo-wear, those operations will have to stand on their own.</p>
<p>There's little reason why a college bookstore can't be competitive with a mail order business on books - they have lots of walk-in traffic, they know exactly what to stock, they don't incur shipping costs (even if Amazon ships for free, they have to pay the USPS), and have the advantage of immediate gratification. Returns don't involve packing and shipping, too. No student is going to buy from a mail order firm if they can walk to the bookstore and walk out with their books a few minutes later for the same, or almost the same, price.</p>
<p>I'm guessing that some bookstores are trying to maintain the gross margins they had in the good old pre-Internet days. Others probably suffer from being run by college administrators rather than experienced retail managers. That's why more schools are outsourcing bookstores - they don't know how to do retail profitably, and when they outsource they at least guarantee they won't lose money.</p>
<p>Funny thing - everybody predicted Amazon would put Barnes & Noble out of business because Amazon didn't need expensive local stores. It hasn't happened. Well run college bookstores won't go out of business either.</p>
<p>Next they'll ban cell phone cameras....I mean at what level is writing down the number not the issue? Voicemailing it? Texting it? Please.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Coop has argued that it owns intellectual property rights to the identification numbers for the books it stocks.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Perhaps they need to speak with a first year student at HLS. They'll quickly find that they own no such thing.</p>
<p>Yes, that is a ludicrous claim. The Cambridge police did not buy it.</p>
<p>barrons: Son is taking college physics this year (senior year in high school) and the book I bought on-line was shipped to me by a student at Amherst. I like eliminating the middle man on used books whenever possible. This textbook was priced at $138 new at the off-campus bookstore, $95 used at the college bookstore and I bought it for $32 including shipping.</p>