Senate introduces bill to decrease textbook costs
Students and faculty who have adapted to the high textbook prices may find relief in the College Textbook Affordability Act
Issue date: 9/13/07
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Students whose wallets have been lightened by the skyrocketing prices of textbooks could receive some relief if an upcoming bill is passed in the Senate.
The bill, entitled the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2007, would require publishers to inform educational institutions and individual professors of textbook prices, any recent revisions and whether the text is available in other formats, such as paperback or unbound.
The Act would also mandate that all ISBN numbers and prices for textbooks be displayed on each course listing and each University would be required to give all class information to major non-University book sellers.
So why has the cost of textbooks risen to such a high point that the government feels the need to step in?
"It's all driven by the publishers," said Paul Lynch, the book department manager at the Johns Hopkins bookstore.
Since publishers make no money on used books, they need to create incentives to keep buying books new.
According to both Lynch and publishers create new "bundles" or "packages" to encourage the purchase of new books. These bundles can include CDs, workbooks and special access codes for online assignments.
"They sell these packages and it just makes it confusing for everyone. Students no longer know what is essential," Lynch said. The Senate bill would require publishing companies would also need to make all components of a "bundle" separately available.
Additionally there is the problem of revisions, where a new edition of the same textbook is seemingly released every yea. Lynch explains that, unlike in the past, the technology exists to make as many reprints and new editions as the publisher's wish.
All this revising has some professors adapting. Peter Holland, the chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Hopkins, is one of them.
"For introductory courses, the basics just don't change that fast," he said. "When the new edition of a book I like is not drastically different from the previous edition, I tell students they can buy or borrow the old edition, and I provide an old syllabus that matches up fairly well topic-by-topic."
The bill, entitled the College Textbook Affordability Act of 2007, would require publishers to inform educational institutions and individual professors of textbook prices, any recent revisions and whether the text is available in other formats, such as paperback or unbound.
The Act would also mandate that all ISBN numbers and prices for textbooks be displayed on each course listing and each University would be required to give all class information to major non-University book sellers.
So why has the cost of textbooks risen to such a high point that the government feels the need to step in?
"It's all driven by the publishers," said Paul Lynch, the book department manager at the Johns Hopkins bookstore.
Since publishers make no money on used books, they need to create incentives to keep buying books new.
According to both Lynch and publishers create new "bundles" or "packages" to encourage the purchase of new books. These bundles can include CDs, workbooks and special access codes for online assignments.
"They sell these packages and it just makes it confusing for everyone. Students no longer know what is essential," Lynch said. The Senate bill would require publishing companies would also need to make all components of a "bundle" separately available.
Additionally there is the problem of revisions, where a new edition of the same textbook is seemingly released every yea. Lynch explains that, unlike in the past, the technology exists to make as many reprints and new editions as the publisher's wish.
All this revising has some professors adapting. Peter Holland, the chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Hopkins, is one of them.
"For introductory courses, the basics just don't change that fast," he said. "When the new edition of a book I like is not drastically different from the previous edition, I tell students they can buy or borrow the old edition, and I provide an old syllabus that matches up fairly well topic-by-topic."
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