Sol Rapoport
Books piled up in a heap around a cardboard tombstone as speakers debated the soaring prices of textbooks on campus.
The Associated Students Organization’s “Textbook Funeral” on March 27 brought together faculty and administrative staff in a symbolic protest of textbook publishing companies.
Similar events were also planned at Los Angeles Trade Tech College and Los Angeles Valley College in an attempt to form a coalition to fight the pricing structure and policies.
Darroch “Rocky” Young, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District and former Pierce College president, was on campus for the day and accompanied President Robert Garber to the event, which laid out the campus-wide campaign to make textbooks more affordable to students.
“There’s probably nothing that impacts students’ lives more than the cost of textbooks,” said Garber.
Praising the efforts of the ASO to address the textbook cost issue as a “great endeavor,” Garber offered his support for future events.
“I’m here for you,” he said. “I’ll go protest wherever you want.”
Calling for “the strongest coalition possible of leaders working together with students,” ASO President Abraham White spoke of combating the growing difficulty students face in financing their studies.
“Every year students are paying inordinate sums of money for textbooks,” he wrote in the event’s invitation. “And to make matters worse, at the end of the semester too many can’t sell back their textbooks because the publishers have issued yet another needless new edition.”
The cardboard tombstone, he explained, was meant to symbolize the death of these textbooks and create an effect that really left an impression.
Young expressed his own commitment to the cause, saying “This is an issue that really matters to me.”
Among his current efforts is a proposed piece of California legislation that would require transparency in the publication of textbooks. Senate Bill 832, introduced by State Senator Ellen Corbett, is currently in the senate’s education committee and will be heard on April 11.
“Publishers would have to disclose to faculty all the costs associated with the books, along with a planned revision schedule,” said Young.
Another initiative, already in place at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, would amalgamate materials and make them available free of charge because authors contributed the copyrights to make them accessible to students.
Academic Senate President Tom Rosdahl spoke to the audience about an option he is currently exploring with his department to lower costs, e-books. An e-book, or an electronic book, is an electronic or digital equivalent of a conventional printed book.
Using e-books, rather than the traditional paper books, would significantly reduce costs for students.
As Rosdahl explained, students would pay a yearly fee to go online and have access to all the same information contained in conventional textbooks, rather than having to pay for each individual book.
Aside from their low distribution costs, e-books also have other advantages. For one, they can be disseminated instantly, allowing students to begin reading at once without needing to visit a bookstore.
Another benefit is that unlike traditional textbooks, e-books don’t wear over time. There is no risk of damage or vandalism to the pages either.
Essentially, students would get access to new books for used book prices. The only drawback to e-books is that students without computer access would not be able to retrieve the information.
The Academic Senate has also explored other options, said Rosdahl, such as meeting with textbook publishers to delve into the issue of elevated textbook prices.
While investigating different ideas is important, a solution to the problem must be found quickly, said Rosdahl.
“One-third of my students don’t buy the book,” he said.
“I assume it’s because they can’t afford the hundred bucks.”
Dressed appropriately in all-black funeral attire, Betty Odello, the Academic Senate’s vice president for academic policy, discussed a number of textbook alternatives.
One option, “vanilla books,” provides the same content as regular textbooks but without glossy color pictures and with lower quality paper.
“The difference in price with the vanilla books can be quite substantial,” said Odello.
“They sometimes cost half the price. The sociology books cost almost two-thirds less.”
The Academic Senate is also researching government Web sites that provide the same content as the textbooks and don’t charge students copyright fees.
District Chancellor Darroch ‘Rocky’ Young speaks at ASO’s textbook protest, which was a mock funeral for the textbooks students waste each year as publishing companies issue new editions year after year. These new editions are one reason textbook prices are continuously raising for students. ()