Digital vs. Bookstores

Three years ago on November 10th, Jeffrey R. Young wrote a very interesting article which he named “As Textbooks Go Digital, Campus Bookstores May Go Bookless”. Young really emphasized the question “ If textbooks go digital , does the campus even need a bookstore?” all throughout his article.

Both online retailers Amazon.com and Half.com have given college students (like myself) the options of buying those old-fashioned textbooks sitting in the bookstores in our campus’. Jeffrey says that some publishers now sell cheaper electronic versions of their textbooks, either through their own web sites or through coursesmart, which is a commercial service supported by major textbook publishers. If these colleges want students to buy textbooks from them like before they must add a price-comparison tool to its website like a Kansas store recently did. The tool allows a student to click on the courses they’re taking from a menu, and the site pulls up a list of required textbooks and shows what each title would cost in the campus bookstore, on web retailers such as amazon.com or any other textbook rental services. A portion of the article Jeffrey wrote discussed the ideas of these College Bookstores getting a Makeover.  They listed dry cleaning, flu-shot clinics, performance space, expanded snack sales, photo printing and study space as some of the ways the store could be used differently. I think any of the ideas stated would be more successful than sitting around all day waiting for a student to purchase a text from the school.

I also think that Jeffrey did an awesome job in this article. I picked this one out of the rest of the articles because as a college student I could definitely relate. When I first started Hesser College in the Manchester campus I bought all my textbooks and even though I sold them back the school after I was done using them the amount I was given back after only having the books for less than two months was ridiculous.

(Ex: A [USED] psychology book I bought was $165.00 at the beginning of the term. When the two months were over, I went down to the bookstore and was given $25.75 back).My parents were having a really difficult time paying for my books and not to mention the dorm living expenses which was a tremendous amount. I listened to my older sister advice (a college graduate) and bought my books elsewhere. There was a “sell your textbook” store 10 minutes away from the campus and a lot of my classmates were selling back their books there as well. The store obviously did not give us back the same amount we paid for the book but we got atleast half and we were able to buy future textbooks there as well. I was saving money that way and things were going better. Now, I rent them online through Amazon and or I download them online if it’s available and free. The article was well written. He gave examples of some colleges who’s bookstore was not selling a textbook and confessed that the money they were making from students was of them purchasing potato chips and beverages rather than the textbooks.