According to the Harvard Crimson newspaper, students are being prohibited by the bookstore from copying down textbook information. Why would a bookstore want to prevent this? Because students then use this information to purchase the books for cheaper online. Sounds like good business/financial smarts to me?
Seriously the textbook market is such a racket of copyright/intellectual property nonsense—power to the students. They are doing what any educated shopper would, comparison shop. If the local bookstore is going to charge too much for books, then by them online, or from other students (most bookstores buy back at ridiculously low rates). The part that amazes me is that the book store claims the information students are copying down is their intellectual property. Huh? Seems to me this information belongs to the students and the professors. Maybe professors should just put the ISBN on their syllabus, problem solved. (The Coop apparently prevented a database of this information from becoming available, a database which would have made it easier for students and faculty to order and get books.)
in it’s Students
its, not it’s
You know, I like to know when I make a mistake on my typing, too. But I do really hate it when someone feels they need make the point in that fashion. I think it’s safe to assume he knows the difference – mistakes happen, oh noes!
As to the point, yes… that’s rather disgusting. I was fortunate this semester that one of my professors actually sent an email out to the students with the book titles, authors and ISBNs so we could get them through whatever channels we desired. Huge improvement.
Our book stores are kind of… famously unreliable though. I make a point not to buy books from any of the local ones.
So instead of writing them down, students will end up just calling someone and reading the ISBN’s aloud while the other person writes them down, or just take a cell phone picture of the ISBN. I don’t see how the bookstore could legally stop the first option or find a viable way to police the second option. I think that they are just trying to play off the schema that “the school is always right, and if you don’t follow the rules something bad will happen.”
good idea to put ISBN # on syllabus. i hadn’t thought of that, but makes complete sense.
The local bookstore is just trying to hang on to the monopoly they used to have before it became so easy to comparison shop for textbooks. I just hope that the faculty don’t put up with it, and moreover that the administration doesn’t MAKE the faculty tolerate such an anti-competitive attitude.