Annotated Bibliography

Barr, Cecillia. "College Textbooks, Kindles & IPads." Debtorg News. N.p., June 2012. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

 

The author of this article makes the point that textbooks are just another cost adding to the general debt incurred by college students. However, their loss is the gain of schools, professors, and publishers. The main solutions that are suggested involve going digital, either by buying the cheaper e-book versions of textbooks, searching for open sourced books, or online databases. Many of these solutions have been suggested elsewhere, and can only be implemented to a small extent, but the major takeaway from this source is that although current prices burden students, any solutions likely to benefit them would hurt the other parties involved.

 

 

Behr, Michele D., "Textbook Alternatives: Options for Students and Faculty" (2013).     Academic Leadership Academy. Paper 40.

 

Michele D. Behr of Western Michigan University takes an indepth look at textbook prices and what is being done at WMU to assist students. She reports that college textbook prices have elevated 812% in the past 36 years. The average student in the United States spends $1,137 on textbooks annually. Western Michigan’s library conveniently offers tens of thousands of e-books to their students. Hopefully, through our research and analysis, we can persuade Drexel’s library to offer the same commodity or at least shine some light on the idea.

 

 

Carbaugh, Robert, and Koushik Ghoush. "Are College Textbooks Priced Fairly?" Challenge 48.5 (2005): 95-112. Print.

 

This article takes a look at what specifically causes the high prices of textbooks, in a very visual form. There is a chart that lists out how much each individual component costs, from the binding to the author’s royalties to the CD’s and workbooks often included in bundles. It also mentions how the market has become concentrated with only a few publishing companies, how bookstores seem to profit whether they buy new or used books back from the students, and how publishers and authors are already concerned by used book markets, without them expanding more. I think our project will benefit from including one of these graphics, and the multiple viewpoints expressed will help us provide a better look at the entire industry before attempting to generate a solution which pleases all involved parties.

 

 

Dervarics, C. (2007). College textbook prices focus of congressional advisory committee hearing. Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 23(24), 14.

 

This source goes into the depth of how textbook prices are rising at an alarming rate. U.S. Rep David Wu, D-Ore reports that the biggest complaint he gets on education is the rising price of textbooks. It goes into how most college bookstores offer “buy back” programs and how some schools offer rental programs if professors agree to use the same book for at least three semesters. This source will help solidify our concern for rising textbook prices.

 

 

Esposito, Joseph. "Why Are College Textbooks So Expensive?" The Scholarly Kitchen. Society for Scholarly Publishing, 10 Oct. 2012. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. <http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/10/10/why-are-college-textbooks-so-expensive/>

 

Joseph Esposito, an experienced management consultant, believes it is ridiculous to believe the notions that textbooks should be free, or that a publisher wouldn’t come out with a new/revised edition just to stop the sale of used books. There is no other book market like textbooks, this structure (which you can view in detail on the piece), as well as what professors want to go into the textbooks, makes it very expensive. Esposito found that the key to textbook publishing is to come up with new editions, whether they slightly changing the text or cover, but to keep the page numbers the same so professors could use same notes for years/decades. Publishers have old ways of coming up with the price of book, taking into account shelf life and expected number of copies sold. The used book market means less money to publishers, and so this drives up the price. There is a belief that prices would drop drastically if professors were financially responsible. This piece goes pretty in-depth into what is driving textbook prices, how much a textbook costs, as well as why this is the case. It could be a very good resource for the topic of textbook prices.

 

 

Figueroa, Andrew. “Textbook Prices.” Survey. 6 November 2014.

 

The survey asks questions about a professor’s use of textbooks in the classroom, ranging from allowing older editions, to asking if they feel their is actual value in the “Drexel edition” books. It is a short and concise survey that is supposed to get to the point quickly and not take up too much of a professor’s time.

The survey could potentially hurt the project if we do not get the answers we are expecting. It will be a good showcase for real world and local data and analysis. We can examine multiple departments and see if the type of class we take as drexel students or students in general can change the dynamics of textbook use.  

 

 

Keohane, Dennis. "Boundless Wants to Do to Textbooks What Wikipedia Did to Encyclopedias." BetaBoston. Boston Globe, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2014.

 

Boundless is a new website that is aiming to be in the same mold as wikipedia but for textbooks. Make the massive amount of data we have for college subjects and turn them into to free open source books, quizzes and powerpoints. They do offer extra resources like a ebook download for around $20, but that pales in comparison to actual textbook costs. They are facing some backlash though from big publishers “Boundless has already faced down a lawsuit from the powers that be in the world of textbooks. In December, the company settled with Cengage Learning, Macmillan, and Pearson Education for copyright infringement.”

This could help with the current solutions sections, as well as what are past solutions. We can take this source in what ever direction we need to. Until I looked for this type of site during research I never even heard of it. I feel companies like this need more exposure to get the word out to make them more popular not just for students but schools as well. The best part about this article is that it doesn't just talk about textbooks it talks about the an all encompassing course resources, from guides to powerpoints to give the control to do more (or less) to the professors.

 

 

Koch, Dr. James V. "An Economic Analysis of Textbook Pricing." ACSFA College Textbook Cost Study Plan Proposal (n.d.): n. pag. Sept. 2006. Web. 29 Oct. 2014.

 

This source is actually a proposal structured very similar to ours; it looks at the causes of high textbook prices, examining both the supply and demand sides of the market. It also points out truths like the fact that teachers are the ones selecting books while students are the ones paying for them. The second half of the article offers solutions that could be adopted on the publisher, college, faculty, and student levels. Many of these are good ideas and have found their way into our proposed solution, yet have not been adopted large scale since this 2006 publication.

 

 

Lazare, Lewis. "Mark Cuban Emerges from 'Tank' to Fund ETextbook Startup Packback         Chicago Business Journal." Chicago Business Journal. Chicago Business Journal, 12 Aug. 2014. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.

 

Talks about a new innovative way to use textbooks when you need them for a small price. Packback is a startup funded by Mark Cuban in the efforts to help college students with textbook costs, allowing 24 rentals for 3-5$. So for example the day before an exam or 2 days you could rent the textbook for 10$ and have ample study time instead of needing it for the entire term and paying $200+. So far the most high-profile textbook publishing company relationship Packback has inked is with McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

This can be used as an aide in our new solutions to this problem and what type of guidelines we can follow, but also past solutions, even though this is fairly new it has very popular backers/supporters. It has Mark Cuban funding it, as well as a publishing group McGraw-Hill. I feel this will be a great resource to reference to during the writing of the paper, so we can really see what types of products can be successful in the fight to lower textbook prices.

 

 

Luckerson, Victor. "Free Textbooks Shaking Up Higher Education." Business Money Free Textbooks Shaking Up Higher Education Comments. Time Magazine, 10 Aug. 2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2014.

 

This article talks about open sourcing college textbooks, which is another way of saying free. we have Richard Baraniuk, a computer and electrical engineering professor at Rice University, who decided that the cost of textbooks were too high and decided to do something about it and founded a company named OpenStax College, which is aiming to revolutionize the textbook industry. This approach would be to offer the books/information for free, but other tools like guides and practice tests for a small fee. They feel they can become a profitable company by just doing this based on the data that over 40% end up “buying something” from the site after the free book is accessible.

This is a great resource for us because it allows us to dig deeper into the understanding of what other options are out there, and how much support these types of companies are getting. Millions of dollars in investments from foundations, and Universities even the Gates foundations has put money into a concept like this. Allowing us to dissect the solutions that have sort of worked or are in the process of working will go a long way in helping us formulate a new solution of solving this textbook price problem.

 

 

Nelson, Libby. "Three Reasons College Textbook Prices Are out of Control." Vox. Vox Media Inc., 25 Aug. 2014. Web. 29 Oct. 2014. <http://www.vox.com/2014/8/25/6058017/why-are-college-textbooks-so-expensive>.

 

Professors may not know how much textbooks cost, as evidence by Peter Thorsness, a professor at the University of Wyoming. Why is this the case? They don’t have to pay for them. This is also reason why prices are going up. Professors often look for best book, not the best price, and don’t seem to be looking at books that may have the same info, but a much better price. Creating a text book is very expensive (up to $750,000). The text also shows that while prices are going up, spending doesn’t seem to be, as students are finding other ways to get the sources. Proposed solutions that Libby brings forward include colleges buying up the textbooks and renting them out, or open educational resources. This article could help as it helps explain the cost of textbooks, and proposes a few solutions that we could research further.

 

 

Renting can cut textbook costs. (2009). Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 26(18), 7.

 

This source addresses the advantages associated with book rental programs offered by school bookstores. The burden associated with buying textbooks is evident with annual costs of close to $1,000 per student. Some students sell their textbooks back after using them in hopes of padding their empty wallets but the value of textbooks decreases at an alarming rate. Companies like Chegg.com and BookRenter.com offer varying rates for textbooks in relation to how long the book will be loaned. This is yet another example of how colleges can help students save money on outrageously priced textbooks.

 

 

Schick, David, and Mary Beth Marklein. "College Students Say No to Costly Textbooks." USA Today. Gannett, 20 Aug. 2013. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.

 

This source was written to explain a trend discovered between the rising cost of textbooks (up 82% in the last decade) and the number of students getting their books from “unauthorized” sources. It mentions additional options for students, like buying used or digital-only versions, but also acknowledges general problems like the inability to sell books back once there is a newer edition in print. These problems will help guide the group to our solution, and we will also draw inspiration from the alternative ideas presented here of savvy students.

 

 

"Why Textbooks Cost so Much." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 16 Aug. 2014. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.

 

This piece shows just how drastic the price increase of textbooks has been over recent years. “The nominal price of textbooks has risen more than fifteenfold since 1970, three times the rate of inflation.” Since professors don’t pay for books, they don’t choose the cheapest, some instructors will even use books they published themselves. Students can obtain cheaper, foreign, copies - this and the used book market are legal because “in 2013 the Supreme Court ruled that Americans have the right to buy and resell copyrighted material obtained legally.” This source is helpful as it talks about the increase of price, as well as current solutions to the problem.