Bookstore to faculty: Stick with typical textbook

The University Book Store (UBS) has made a point of urging instructors at the UW to stick with traditional textbooks in an effort to save students money.

Non-traditional textbooks, which are customized or bundled books, have a lower buy-back value, said Rob Dodson, manager of the textbook department at UBS, and therefore the bottom line costs students more.

Dodson authored a letter with support from Bob Cross, the general manager, and Bryan Pearce, associate general manager, which appeared in The Daily last week.

They believe the buy-back system at UBS is vital to saving students money on textbooks, and want to make sure faculty members understand this when assigning books.

UBS wrote the letter because of the significant increase in the use of non-traditional textbooks at UW over the past few years.

Textbook bundles, which are usually shrink-wrapped, contain a traditional textbook along with another item like a CD-ROM or a study guide. Customized textbooks are books that have been added to or deleted from to fit the instructor's needs.

While these types of books are generally more expensive than traditional textbooks, the main problem is with buying back the text. If the CD-ROM is missing in the bundle or if a customized book is not being used next quarter, the store cannot buy them back, or cannot offer much of a rebate.

Though approximately 95 percent of students buy their textbooks from UBS, the bookstore does not make a significant profit selling them, according to Cross. Most of the store's profits come from sales elsewhere in the store.

He estimates the bookstore saves students $4 million a year on textbooks through the buy-back and patronage refund program.

Cross explained how a $37.50 used book, which originally cost $50, could end up costing a student only $9.50 if he or she sold it back and received their patronage refund.

He said the store's main profit comes from selling apparel, and mentioned that if textbook sales were highly profitable, other stores targeting students in the U-District would focus on selling textbooks rather than sweatshirts.

"We take pride in the value of the bookstore unmatched by any other university store," says Pearce. "It's all about saving the students money."

The University Book Store was founded by UW students more than 100 years ago so students could purchase textbooks and other necessary materials at the lowest possible cost, according to the letter.

Gerald Baldasty, a professor in the communications department, believes the buy-back system is important to students, and chooses to teach with traditional textbooks.

"Traditional textbooks are often in the students' best interests because they cover broad topics and are in students financial range," Baldasty said. "What bothers me about some of the non-traditional bundles is that a lot of the extra materials aren't needed and students can't resell them."

Kari Tupper, a senior lecturer in the women studies and comparative history of ideas departments, uses non-traditional textbooks in the classroom because they give students a variety of articles to read from, and can be more cost effective.

Instead of having students buy several books, she complies all the needed material into one customized book.

"I think it is good for students to be exposed to wide-ranging materials on a given topic," Tupper says. "I'd have to put 15 or 20 books on the syllabus to approach the variety I can achieve with a custom course reader."

Though saving students money is important, businesses -- publishers, authors, editors and others -- still have to turn a profit, and publishers are not paid for resold books.

Jennifer Hand, who works for Pearson Custom Publishing, sells customized textbooks for many UW classes, such as economics, philosophy and political science.

"We find in quarter schools that a book that's designed for semester classes doesn't work for quarters," Hand says, "so we customize books, usually by making them shorter to fit the quarter system, and we charge less for them."

Hand say her company only sees a profit once -- when books are first bought -- and in order to compete with the growing used-book market, publishers come out with new editions of books more often in hopes of selling more new books.

"Publishers are doing all we can to create less expensive alternatives for professors," Hand says. "It is really tough for us, as we pay our authors for their services and all development fees, only to have used books feed off our business."

Though she does not object to University Book Store selling books to students, she says the store often buy books from a national used-book market, which also decreases publishing profits.

Cross, Dodson and Pearce acknowledge that non-traditional books work well for some classes, and support faculty who use them to enhance learning, but they hope their letter will sway some teachers where the choice is truly an option.