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Endless lines curling around the student union tell us it?s that
time again: textbook season! The process of buying textbooks is
almost unavoidable, and at times it seems like students almost
enjoy getting screwed ? only it?s not the pleasurable sort of
experience like that one time at the frat party. It?s more of a
long wait, followed by a brief burst of activity, ending with you,
the willing victim, handing over an outrageously high payment for
the act. We leave the bookstore muttering to ourselves ?Never
again!? ? but we?ll be back. And ASUCLA knows it.
What lies behind our love-hate relationship with textbooks? On
one hand, it?s rather difficult to attend UCLA without buying the
books assigned by professors. Some brave souls have attempted to
pass a class without reading ? and some have even succeeded. But
that approach is best suited to our friends majoring in ?Oppression
Studies? with their final essay prompts of ?Describe a time when
The Man oppressed you. Feel free to embellish with crude sketches
and off-color remarks.?
For the rest of us, there?s little option but to buy our books.
The Internet would seem to have solved all our problems. There were
times past when Bruin Walk was covered in a foot-deep layer of
dot-com bookseller brochures and bookmarks. That would be all well
and good if those businesses weren?t now in bankruptcy, victims of
the old-fashioned business model that emphasized profits over
losses.
So ordering books online is pretty much out ? when you can find
the assigned book, it?s at full list price, with a $5 shipping fee,
to be sent ?in 6-8 weeks.? And now we?re back to square one, the
hell on earth known as the ASUCLA book store. Every student knows
their racket: while they claim to offer 25 percent discounts on
used books, their idea of a used inventory for the book you need is
mainly theoretical. Sure, it would be nice to have that less
expensive used copy in stock but they?re not going to bust their
butts to make that happen. After all, you need the book, used or
not.
Remember, you?ve really got no choice. And of course, the other
side of the coin comes at quarter?s end, when again ASUCLA is not
busting their butts to pay you very much for your used books. They
claim to pay up to 50 percent of original purchase price for your
used book. But they?ll pay up to 50 percent like George W. Bush is
up to 50 percent Democrat. In fact, rumor has it that the book
shown on that ?50 percent back? poster is the only one they offer
that for.
There are a few other options of note for the starving student,
or for that matter any student not interested in a $500 book bill.
USAC runs a book-lending program, but since nobody knows about it
except student government insiders ?and the office is only open one
day a week ? it remains strictly a perk for people in the know.
Copyright infringement is a far more realistic, if illegal,
option. A professor of mine this quarter, bless his soul, was
realistic. Having assigned a 1500 page book at $84.50 plus tax, of
which we?d only be reading the first 300 pages, he noted that some
students had been known to photocopy the assigned pages and return
the book. If the class hadn?t been so overcrowded, we might have
given him a standing ovation for his honesty.
On the other hand, the real question lies in why a professor
would assign an expensive book when we?d only be reading 20 percent
of it. That?s the real truth. Professors, not ASUCLA, are to blame
for thin wallets campus-wide. Professors rarely give the impression
that they care about book expenses. One political science professor
noted on his syllabus, ?I understand that the total cost of these
books could strain some budgets, and for that, I apologize.?
Apologies are great, but economizing, whether it be the number of
books or choosing less-costly version, would be even better.
For a bunch of people who have spent their entire lives around
students, professors can be remarkably inured to the economic
burden of their teaching lists. The History Department, in my
experience, is the worst offender. They are known for assigning
five to six books, each costing from $15 to $20, most often, with a
total cost higher than a political science class with a single
reader.
Unfortunately, there is little prospect of a change in the
situation. So long as professors assign what they want, when they
want, and how they want, with a dash of cronyism ? assigning one?s
own book ? for flavor, students will continue the quarterly march
of shame through the ASUCLA bookstore.