Students, teachers rally for textbook bill

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

One hundred and six dollars. That’s what the political science textbook “Empirical Political Analyses” will cost students when they return to UC Santa Barbara this fall for classes.
It’s just one of eight required textbooks that junior political science and environmental studies student Tessa Atkinson-Adams will have to purchase in order to stay afloat in one class.
She’s not alone.
Tens-of-thousands of students across the country are expected to spend about $900 on textbooks this year. It’s a constantly growing amount that doesn’t sit well with Atkinson-Adams, who aside from her studies, is the chair of the UCSB division of CALPIRG (California Student Public Interest Research Group).


Atkinson-Adams staged a modest press conference in front of the UCSB bookstore yesterday, where she joined math Professor Martin Scharlemann, Associated Students President Stephanie Brower and Associate Dean of Students Carolyn Buford, to urge Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign legislation that will help make textbooks more affordable.
“I really feel like there’s no downside to signing this,” Brower said. “I think it’s very unfair to professors and students.”
Scharlemann said he rarely knows the cost of textbooks and when he asks, he gets the run-around from publishing companies.
“We have no information about the pricing of a textbook,” Scharlemann said, adding that he and many of his colleagues would take the sticker price into consideration before ordering books if they knew.
Not only does Scharlemann not know the prices when he orders textbooks, he said publishing companies make it nearly impossible to support the used textbook market because they put out new additions whether they need to or not.
He said in a discipline like calculus, which hasn’t changed much for centuries, there are new additions each year. The only difference from between the different versions, he said, is that the publisher’s change the problem sets so it’s impossible to buy a used book.
In disciplines that don’t have problem sets, such as art textbooks, Brower said textbook companies will simply rearrange the chapters.
She said the re-editioning of textbooks, and its impact on requiring the consumer to purchase new books, is so glaring that she saw a used edition of a book for sale online for slightly higher than one-dollar.
“It’s a market flaw for which it makes sense to have legislation to fix,” Scharlemann said.
That legislation Atkinson-Adams hopes the Gov. Schwarzenegger signs is Senate Bill 832, which has already cruised through the legislature and is expected to make it to the governor’s desk desk in the coming weeks.
According to the State Senate’s web site, the bill will require publishing companies to price their textbooks as affordable as possible, keep textbooks on the market as long as possible, indicate all products they sell, how much they cost and how long they will be on the market and ensure that supplementary items, such as CDs and other items, which are often bundled with the textbook and drive up the costs, can be purchased separately.
The legislation couldn’t be more timely for students and many faculty members, who say statistics gathered in 2005 show textbook and supplies account for 26 percent of the total cost for tuition and fees. At a two-year pubic school, books and supplies account for 72 percent of the total costs.
According to a letter drafted by several UC professors, the cost of textbooks have risen at twice the rate of inflation over the last 20 years.
Atkinson-Adams said bills similar to Senate Bill 832 have been passed in Connecticut and Washington.
Brower told the small crowd gathered about her efforts to buy textbooks online.
She said online shopping is a dangerous thing to do because if you buy the textbook ahead of time, professors sometimes change the syllabus during the first week of class. It an instructor decides the book isn’t needed, Brower said used books bought online are nearly impossible to sell back.
But if you buy them at the bookstore, the costs soar.
“It’s really a double edged sword,” Brower said.
Brower told a story about a professor who asked the students on the first day of class how much they spent on the book. When the professor found out, Brower said the she told the students to take them back.
In an effort to battle the escalating costs, Atkinson-Adams said some professors have made the reading available online, which takes some of the stress off students’ pocket books.
Though those attending the press conference were hopeful the legislation would go through, Atkinson-Adams fears counter legislation, which is supported by textbook companies could prevail.
This legislation is Assembly Bill 1548, which Atkinson-Adams said doesn’t have enough teeth to hold textbook publishers accountable for their business practices.
“It doesn’t really get at the heart of the issue now,” Atkinson-Adams said.
Buford summed up the general feeling, which Atkinson-Adams hopes the governor will hear.
“It’s important that you can afford your books,” Buford said.