Textbook extortion
I have two children in college. More frequently than I can understand, college bookstores replace the edition of textbooks used during the semester; therefore those books can’t be sold back to the bookstore, even for a miserly amount. Are there any local non-profits that will take used college textbooks? I know there are organizations that send textbooks to third-world countries but I haven’t found any locally that do that. Thanks.
Rebecca Hazelwood, marketing and volunteer coordinator for the International Book Project, said they are glad to get textbooks, as long as they have been published since 2000. Rachel Lewis, executive director, adds that they have a particular need for science, math, agriculture, medical and nursing books, reference books and dictionaries.
This non-profit organization has sent over 5 million books since 1966, around the world. Textbooks are the majority of the books they distribute, but they also distribute children’s books, and any other books they receive. The books go to Peace Corps volunteers, churches and other non-profit organizations. Their office and warehouse is located at 1440 Delaware Ave., open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. IBP will provide a receipt for contributions.
On the topic of buying textbooks:
From The New York Times, this past Sunday: Don’t Buy That Textbook, Download It Free
“Squint hard, and textbook publishers can look a lot like drug makers. They both make money from doing obvious good — healing, educating — and they both have customers who may be willing to sacrifice their last pennies to buy what these companies are selling.”
“It is that fact that can suddenly turn the good guys into bad guys, especially when the prices they charge are compared with generic drugs or ordinary books. A final similarity, is that both textbook publishers and drug makers benefit from the problem of ‘moral hazards’ — that is, the doctor who prescribes medication and the professor who requires a textbook don’t have to bear the cost and thus usually don’t think twice about it.”
Filed under: Lexington info
My mother was a public school librarian. I earned a bachelor’s degree in music and a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Kentucky. The Herald-Leader hired me as a news assistant 25 years ago; soon after, I moved to the news research department, where I’ve been ever since. We used to clip newspapers. Now, almost all of our research is online. We've come a long way.
The real kicker, if you teach, is that the older editions of the books are no longer available…blame the publishers for that one. Rather than send the professor a new desk copy, they’ll send an errata sheet with the changes from the previous edition to the current. It’s usually obscenely short.
Students should ask their professors if an older edition (within the last year or two) is okay. Having had the aforementioned experience with errata sheets, I’ll permit it. As a professor, one should provide, pro forma, the ISBN number for one’s preferred textbooks so students have the option of buying them in the cheapest way possible.
The students who are trapped are those who use financial aid debit accounts at their college bookstores- in some cases, the bookstores are charging well above the MSRP for new books. Students can use the ISBNs to determine if they’re being ripped off, and lodge a complaint with their college’s administration.