Are Used Texts Really the Answer?

  At the beginning of the semester, textbooks are a common topic of conversation.  In my classes,  promote buying used books and often tell students to look online to find good deals.  As I read the article Why are Textbooks so Expensive?, by Henry L. Roediger III,  I wondered if I was, in fact, contributing to the problem of high textbooks. 

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Roediger says that the used textbook companies are to blame for the problem.  The publisher has to spend money on the production and marketing of the textbook, which can be quite expensive.  Students sell their books back to the bookstore or to a used textbook company for a small price.  Those books are marked up and sold again.  When the books are resold again and again, the publisher nor the author makes no additional profit on the books. 

Richard Hull and Michael Lennie in their article Why E-Textbooks Just Make Sense agree with the thought that the high price of books is directly related to the used textbook stores.  They say "perceived student savings from buying lower-priced used books is deceptive, because the used-book industry essentially forces publishers to prematurely publish expensive 'revised editions' for the primary purpose of reducing their losses from used-book sales."  Hull and Lennie say that few course texts need to revised every three years. 

Online texts, or etexts, may be the answer.  Publishers often offer online texts, which can save the student quite a bit of money. Purchasing a text this way would give the authors and publishers some profit,  and may stop some of the used textbook sales.  The students, however, wouldn't be able to recoup any of the money at the end of the semester.

What are your thoughts?  Do you feel that texts would become less expensive if students purchased more new texts?  Should students purchase etexts?  Would this require them to print out their texts if they are to be used in class?  Many questions to ponder at the beginning of the semester!

Note:  Thanks to Cheryl Bowman for today's blog information.