In this new age of Internet shopping, some Duke students have begun to buy their textbooks at online bookstores such as Amazon.com and Borders.com. Often, students are able to find books for prices below those offered by the Duke Textbook Store, even with shipping costs.
Several administrators have said the rise of online bookstores is one of the driving forces behind their current investigation into the potential merits of privatizing the University bookstores.
In an interview last month, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said he is considering the eight-figure offers from Barnes & Noble College Stores and Follett College Stores for reasons beyond the immediate financial windfall.
He said online bookstores will drastically change the way books are sold in upcoming years, and the University must be prepared.
"I don't regard this decision to be financial," Trask said, "I regard it to be long-term financial."
The new trend in online shopping has so far not harmed campus bookstores, said Jim Wilkerson, director of Duke University Stores.
One way the textbook store will deal with its new electronic competitors is by creating its own online version by the fall.
This new option would help it compete with online bookstores by allowing students to order books from Duke while sitting at their personal computers.
"If there is a new way to conduct business in the future... we'll be there," Wilkerson said. "I see challenges, but quite frankly this Internet business is quite easy to conduct."
The online store will allow students to shop for books using course numbers, so that students can find out what books have been ordered for a particular class without waiting for a course syllabus. Students will then be able to pick up ordered books at the textbook store or have them delivered.
Wilkerson said students use online bookstores because they are convenient, and emphasized that many books offered by the textbook store are less expensive than those offered by online companies.
But Trinity freshman Andrew Chatham, who bought three books online earlier this semester, disagreed with this assessment.
"I did not buy books online because of the convenience," said Chatham, who used Computerliteracy.com and Borders.com. "I bought them online because they were inexpensive. I ended up saving about $35, plus I got one book new that I would otherwise have bought used."
Although not all books offered by online bookstores are cheaper than those in the textbook store, many are. A student buying brand-new books at the textbook store for Biochemistry 228, History 92D, Economics 51D, and English 154 would pay $402.45.
Even with shipping costs, those same books would cost substantially less online: $389.42 through Amazon.com or $366.92 through Barnesandnoble.com.
Looking to help students interested in using Internet resources to shop around, Jeremy Portzer, an engineering freshman, and David Cummings, a Trinity freshman, created a web site, The Textbook Stop, that they offered to Duke students beginning with this spring's classes. The site-at http://textbooks.ml.org-provides a place online for students to sell used textbooks. Because this process eliminates the commissions charged by professional booksellers, students are able to sell books for more and buy them for less.
"We realized that students can save a lot of money by selling [used books] to each other, but what was needed was some kind of forum to advertise them," Portzer said, noting that the site was very successful. He and Cummings plan to post it again next semester.
The Textbook Stop is linked to BookNet, a similar service provided by DevilNet, which is affiliated with The Chronicle. Jeff Horwich, Trinity senior and editor of DevilNet, said he hoped BookNet allowed students "to find a price closer to the middle."
Katherine Stroup contributed to this story.
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