Rice bookstore to offer rental option

By Josh Rutenberg     5/16/10 7:00pm

Buying textbooks just became a little easier. Beginning this fall, the Rice University Bookstore will offer textbooks for rental at less than half the cost of purchasing a new textbook.Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, which operates the campus bookstore along with 635 other campus bookstores nationwide, will begin the program this fall after testing in the previous year at 25 universities, Bookstore Manager Tim Jackson said.

"It seemed like it made more sense to go that route," Jackson said.

Housing and Dining, which is in charge of overseeing the bookstore, has been coordinating efforts with Barnes & Noble to make the rental program at Rice a possibility. Senior Director of H&D Frank Rodriguez said he anticipates the program will ease the financial burden of buying textbooks.

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"Barnes & Noble has been rolling this out slowly over the past couple of years and we really wanted to get involved in it," Rodriguez said. "It is a program that can save money for the students. Instead of students trying to go online for textbooks, they can get them in the bookstore."

Barnes & Noble originally developed the idea for a rental system after seeing students turning to Chegg and other online outlets for cheaper alternatives, Jackson said.

"We've lost a lot of the student attention and I think this process will show that Barnes & Noble isn't the bad guy, and we are trying to lower the cost," he said.

To rent textbooks, students must fill out a rental agreement form. As long as the textbooks remain in good condition, the bookstore will accept the rentals back, Jackson said. Good condition textbooks will have spines intact, all original pages and components included and no excessive damage or markings, although normal highlighting and writing are permitted.

"We are taking the burden that the book will be owned by us," Jackson said. "We honestly believe the system will work and make students happy."

Textbooks can be rented through the bookstore or online at rice.bncollege.com. A "Rent Me" sticker or "Rental" icon will accompany textbooks available for rental.

Students will have the option to convert their rental into a purchase prior to the end of the second week of classes by paying for the difference of the used textbook price and rental price.

All rentals must be returned within 10 days after the last day of finals and the bookstore will remind students with an e-mail as the deadline for returning textbooks approaches.

Rice will test the program on a year-by-year basis, Associate Vice President of H&D Mark Ditman said.

"Over the course of the year, we will decide if [textbook rental] is beneficial to customers," Ditman said. "It's yet to be known whether [textbook rental] will be a longterm program."

Ditman, who is familiar with the cost of textbooks from his own daughter's college experience at the University of Texas at Austin, said he can see advantages to a rental option.

"From a parent's standpoint, it's a good situation for students who don't want to keep their texts," Ditman said. "If you cycle through textbooks and want to minimize cost, it seems like it has potential to do that."

Currently, students can resell new or used books back to the bookstore for half of the new textbook price, regardless of where the books were purchased originally. Jackson noted that under the current system, it could be up to a year before students are able to resell textbooks if the same book is needed for multiple semesters.

Physics professor Barry Dunning said he thinks the rental program is a sensible alternative for students who do not plan on retaining their textbooks after taking a course. Dunning co-teaches one of Rice's largest classes, PHYS 101: Mechanics, with physics professor Timothy Gilheart in the fall semester. This course is required for several different majors and he imagines that many non-physics majors already end up reselling their books and would therefore take advantage of the program.

Dunning said his only concern with the program is the pressure that might be placed on faculty to retain the same textbook between years, even if a better alternative comes out.

"There will be more inertia in the system, " Dunning said about reusing specific textbooks.

Not all titles will be available for rental next year. Rental titles will be limited to the textbooks that are most in demand, Jackson said. If a textbook will be releasing a new edition in the coming year, the bookstore will not make these books available for rent until the updated versions become available.

Jackson said that dollar paperbacks will not be available for rental because they already can be purchased at a low price.

"We want to isolate the books which make the most sense, books like Organic Chemistry," Jackson said. "The goal is to alleviate as much pressure financially as we can."

Jackson said that as the rental program grows, the bookstore will have the chance to determine what textbooks will be most beneficial for students to rent.

"Some of the smaller classes might not make the cut, but if there's a class we missed I want to know," he said.

Ditman added that because the rental program will be implemented nationwide, demand from other universities might provide a greater variety of textbooks for rental.

Most of all, Jackson said he encourages students to contact the bookstore about any textbooks that should be added to the rental list.

"Inevitably, we will miss a few titles," Jackson acknowledged. "We want to hear from students. I want there to be an open dialogue on campus."

Jackson can be reached by calling the bookstore at 713-348-4052 or by sending an e-mail to timothy.j.jackson at rice.edu.

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