Hi Paul- I understand where you're coming from. I lost it a few years ago when the research methods text I had been using jumped in price to $150.00. Many of my students quickly realized that the cost of photocopying the text was only a small fraction of the purchase price so they quickly set up a cottage industry to pirate the textbook. Frankly, I couldn't blame them. After that I told all of the book reps that I would only consider adopting reasonably priced texts. Lo and behold, they pulled out lots of of texts which were a fraction of the price of the text I had been using! Book reps & publishers clearly understand the concept of "half-a-loaf". If you make your displeasure clear to them I'm pretty sure that they'll provide you with more reasonable alternatives.
-Don. ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul C Bernhardt <pcbernha...@frostburg.edu> Date: Saturday, August 21, 2010 8:23 pm Subject: [tips] Warning: Rant: $180!!!!! To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > Excuse this rant. I know it isn't news, but textbook prices are > out of control. > > Out of curiosity, I checked at the bookstore for how much my > students will have to pay for a copy of the text I've selected > for one of my courses. > > $180.00 (new) > > That's not right. It is also about $50 more than I thought > students would suffer for it (which is still too much). > > They can get it for just under $140 on Amazon and Textbooks.com. > I'm still appalled. > > Looking at the books for the other classes I'm teaching.. > $174.00 > > For another class in which I'm using trade paperbacks, $23 and > $17 (two books required, prices for new copies). No issue with > those prices, of course. > > But, it puts the textbook prices in sharp contrast: is a > textbook really something that requires between 6 and 10 times > the price? > > I think it is (past) time for faculty to assert the control we > have over this process. I am going to pick a new book for I/O > for the Spring. I will make sure that I specify that students > can use previous editions of the book. I know the publishers try > to pull the old editions out of circulation, but they are still > out there and do cost a lot less. > > When I teach the class requiring the $174 book next fall I'm > going to allow the previous edition. You may recall my > describing that I was not going to allow the previous edition > for this book a few months back. But, with publishers selling > individual chapters to students, they will spend much less to > buy a new copy of the previous edition and simply buy that > chapter from the publisher for an inflated price. > > For the stats class with the $180 book, same thing, but there is > also a possibility to use Wikibooks. A fully developed stats > book sits there. Whether it can be used for a behavior sciences > stats course is another question. Flatworldknowledge.com is > another model by which students can get free and greatly reduced > price textbooks, though no stats book there, yet. > > How many of us check how much students get charged for the books > we require? What solutions are we seeking? What more can we do? > > Paul C. Bernhardt > Department of Psychology > Frostburg State University > Frostburg, Maryland > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: dap...@shaw.ca. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98f18&n=T&l=tips&o=4338or > send a blank email to > leave-4338-13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98...@fsulist.frostburg.edu Don Allen Retired professor Langara College --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4350 or send a blank email to leave-4350-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
