By: Diane Arias/Staff Writer
It saves to rent.
The University’s Barnes and Nobles college bookstore announced recently that it has saved students $775,091 in book rentals during the fall of 2011.
The bookstore is bringing these savings to students by renting the textbooks at half price of the new book price.
However, despite the savings that has been made available, students are not renting books more than they are buying them.
According to the General Manager of the Barnes and Noble college bookstore, Meaghan Connolly, students may be buying books more than renting them because only about half of the titles at the bookstore are available as rentals.
Students who need a code for their courses cannot rent out the code because it is usable. As for consumable titles, they cannot be reused again for the next semester. The titles that are customized for the University, for example the MAC 1105 book and certain English books, can not be used around the country for the bookstore’s other locations. This means they cannot rent these customized texts only at the University’s bookstore.
“We use a database of rental titles that we can use if they’re not going to be re-rented at our stores at other stores around the country,” said Connolly.
The option of renting textbooks was made available at the University in the spring of 2007.
Patricia Price, chair of the Textbook Affordability Committee in the University Faculty Senate, thinks that book rentals and e-books, electronic versions of textbooks, are drawing students away from traditional textbooks. Though she also believes that the traditional textbook will not be done away with.
“Some students like the physicality [of books] and like to hold on to books at the end of the semester,” said Price.
In regard to saving money, Price said, “Renting textbooks saves a lot of money. Anything that saves money is great. If an upper-division student needs a case book, for example, it may be valuable in the future, which would be the only downside [to renting].”
Nicole Fernandez, graduate student in the School of Education Curriculum and Instruction in social studies said, “I’ll rent it if it is available to rent. The only thing is that you can’t write in it that much. I like writing in my books. Sometimes I don’t rent my books because it depends if I think I’m going to like the book or not.”
Lucas Au-yung-raidest, junior in international business and management said, “Sometimes book rentals are actually more expensive because, if you think about it, you can buy a book, return it used and get more money back and you get more value overall versus just renting it.”
“If it’s a book that everyone wants and you’re going to be using for several semesters, then no [don’t rent it]. If it’s a book that you’re not going to get any money back for, then yes [rent it].”
When asked how renting has worked out for him, Au-yung said, “Right now, for some books it has worked out for me, and there are other books that I got completely ripped off, I feel.”
David Frisch, junior English literature major said, “I always liked them [book rentals]. Instead of spending $80 dollars on a textbook, I can sit there and spend $20 and rent it and then give it back. When used isn’t available, rent is a viable option. If I can’t find a book here, I’ll usually try and find one of the alternative book stores.
When asked if they use any other resources to attain books, Frisch said, “I’ve used amazon.com to order books. Overnight shipping helps when I’m in a tight spot.”
Au-yung-raidest said, “I’ll go online and then I’ll check on chegg, neebo or on any other site.”
rent textbooks? that could be awesome!