When students return for classes in August, they may need to brace themselves for shelling out hard-earned summer funds for their syllabi-specified texts.
Rising college textbook costs have recently been the subject of pending legislation in Congress, editorials in national newspapers and non-profit organizations.
Textbook prices have nearly tripled since the 1980s, an April editorial in The New York Times said, highlighting a need for universities and professors to take further action to help students save money when buying their books.
Bob Walker, manager of the Duke Textbook Store, said he has observed rising costs but added that certain factors prevent the store from reducing prices. He noted that among other measures to keep costs low, used books from wholesalers can be sold at only 25 percent less than the cost of a new book.
"Textbook prices have been rising for 20 years, though they have risen above the inflation rate over the past few years," he said. "We try to keep prices low and maximize the amount of used books from students and from wholesalers."
Older used books can be sold for considerably less, but custom-made collections are the most expensive because of the need to obtain copyright permissions, Walker said.
Although these copyright fees have doubled or tripled over the past five years, he said ultimately they may still be cheaper than the price of the individual books within the collection.
Increasing numbers of students are turning from bookstores to online retailers to buy their books. Web sites such as eBay, Amazon and www.half.com are popular sites for textbook buyers nationwide.
"I usually try to go to the [Textbook Store] Web site to look at the books I need, and then I go to Amazon to compare prices," junior Alaina Pleatman said. "The prices for new books online are usually comparable, but the used books are much cheaper [than in the Textbook Store]."
The Textbook Store makes an effort to cut prices by asking professors whether they will reuse books in later semesters, which allows the store to pay students a higher price during book buy-back, Walker said. If professors do not respond, however, students are offered wholesale prices, which can be much lower than the prices students originally paid.
"The key is to get as many faculty requisitions as possible," he said. "[The program] could be better and we routinely try new things. There is room for improvement in that area."
Another popular option for students can be selling to and buying from their friends, which cuts out the middleman and gives students better deals than the bookstore, Pleatman said.
Walker said the bookstore, regardless of what other book options offer, will continue to be a reliable source for texts.
"I still think we're here to serve the students and we're here for convenience," he said. "We get the books on time and accurately process the orders.... That's what we really focus on."
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