Task Force on Textbooks
- Chair & Committee
Members
- Charges
- Minutes March 7, 2007
- Attachment 1: How KU's Textbook Task Force 3-9-07 -- this document explains in one page what we did and how we did it.
- Attachment 2: Student Senate Bill -- Textbook Library -- this is the one piece of the recommendation that didn't happen. Actually, the KU Library was all for it, and Hannah introduced this bill to Student Senate for the $26,515 to get it started. Unfortunately, this came before Student Senate at election time in Spring 2007, when Hannah was running for president. She did win the presidency, but her opponents managed to scuttle the bill in Student Senate.
- Attachment 3: Textbook flyer -- the key piece in the puzzle is actually held by the KU Bookstore, which has the responsibility for assembling faculty textbook orders for the following semester. Contrary to what the Bookstore buyers assumed, most KU faculty members do not make the individual decision on which textbook to use. For the vast majority of courses (especially those that use large quantities of textbooks), the decision of "which text to use" is a shared one -- made at the department level. On average, a new textbook (or a new edition) is adopted once every 3 years -- and nearly always in the summer, so that faculty have time to adjust the syllabus, exams, etc. for the new book. In other words, a "typical textbook" is used for 6 semesters, once when it's new and 5 more times when it's repurchased as used.
- Attachment 4: Testimony on SB 315 -- given by Diane Duffy, VP Finance & Administration, on 2/20/07. Diane presented this based on the information we were able to pull together for her in early February, 2007. Basically, the key to holding down the cost of textbooks is to make sure that an ample supply of used books remains onhand, rather than getting shipped back to a central warehouse for "Nebraska Books" or "Missouri Books," the regional wholesaler.
- Attachment 5: Textbook Savings per Mucci, OK -- David Mucci and I pulled this information together in May of this year (2008) to provide some sense of how much money KU Bookstores have already saved students. As you'll see, David used very conservative numbers in this: an average NEW textbook at $51.33 and an average USED textbook at $34.98, with an average student buying 10 books per year. In the first year of the new program, KU Bookstores increased the percentage of Used textbook sales to 45 percent of the total from 30 percent the previous year. This savings of $621,660, divided by 25,348 students on the Lawrence campus, provided a first-year savings of $24.53 per student.
