"Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than against them is to attain literacy."
-- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984
Why university bookstores should get out of the bookselling business
0I've been thinking through some of the real implications of what a Giant EduGraph might do. If a GiantEduGraph includes open data about all the books used in a course, then students would know what books they'll need next semester ahead of time. The consequence -- university bookstores should get out of the business of selling books.
0Really. Here's why. But with two hedges. 1) I'm assuming that deals on books from online services will often be cheaper than what university bookstores can offer. (UMW's bookstore currently doesn't have any textbooks on its shelves, so I can't do any checking right now). 2) I'm also assuming that professors all publish the list of required texts long before the beginning of the semester.
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0First, one excellent source for linked data is the RDF BookMashup. Here's part of the data for a typical textbook, viewed with the Tabulator FF plugin.
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030 or so special offers for the book. Let's imagine that, in a Giant EduGraph, faculty just enter ISBN numbers for the books in their courses. Then a display of info about the course can include the offers, with links to let students buy them. Yep, bypasses the bookstore. But I think there are more fundamental reasons for the university bookstore to get out of the book business.
0First, start with the service the university bookstore supplies. It's a centralized place where students can get those hard-to-find, specialized textbooks that the professors require.
0Wait, what? This is the same no-longer-true idea that books are hard to find, just like how classrooms are designed on the principle that information is hard to find. But with Amazon or any number of other services, students can purchase any book they need over the internet. Maybe even with a better discount. If we don't need the bookstore to help students purchase their books, and students might even be able to get a better deal through their own means, why is the bookstore selling books?
0Next, though I'm not a business person at all, it seems to me that as a store there are some real weaknesses in the model. Shelf space is important, right? Now, for a few weeks a semester, there's a lot of shelf space that is put to good use. Then, for weeks and weeks and weeks, all that shelf space is practically wasted. And let's not forget the shipping costs, and lots of labor time spent. All to provide a service that's out of date.
0 Again, no expert me, but I get the feeling that bookstores are aware and struggling with this. I've seen partnerships between Barnes & Noble and Border's for the university bookstore. And almost all university bookstores have an extensive general book selection. I expect these are signs of the practical, financial demands of keeping the bookstore in business. No matter what. Because we have to have a bookstore so students can get their books. Right?
0Added bonus: students wouldn't have to buy all their books at once. That book that you don't need until the last 2 weeks of class? No need to buy it before the bookstore pulls it off the shelves.
0Now, there are important services and products that the university bookstore offers:
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Above: Flickr cathyse97 CC
Right: Flickr Inkyhack CC
0Proud parents everywhere would be crushed if the bookstore didn't sell this stuff. This should stay.
0The bookstore also offers supplies -- paper, pencils, flash drives, etc. That's essential.
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Above: Flickr cathyse97 CC
Right: Flickr slack13 CC
0There's still a small book-oriented service that bookstores could and should supply. How about a service where they look up the best deals for students and order the books from whatever services get them the best deal. Yeah, charge for that service, and let students come and pick up the books, much as most bookstores do now. Keep the pickup service; ditch the bookshelves. Concentrate on the service, not the books.
0 So what happens to the bookstore? Most of the transformation is already there -- make it the "University Gifts and Supplies Store". Again, keep the book pickup service for students who want it. Expand the supplies. Maybe expand the gifts. But--let's also think about what other services/products would serve student needs better. Maybe expand the convenience-store aspect of bookstores, especially in cases where there's not a grocery store near campus? More electronics typical for a dorm room, or more of the kinds of cords and adaptors students have to go to Best Buy for? More dorm-room needs? I'm not talking a small Ikea, but maybe some bare kitchen essentials? Or the kinds of incidental crap that you never think about needing until you need it right now
0 What would be more useful in a University Gifts and Supplies store would vary, depending on what's in the area surrounding the campus. If there's a Target two blocks away, no need to duplicate that. It would be wonderful for an institution to look at what the students need in their residential life, see what needs aren't being met by surrounding businesses, and bring that into the store. In the age of Amazon.com et al., I think that would serve a bigger need than selling textbooks.
Comments
Patrick- I think you make
Patrick-
I think you make some great points.
Personally, I would like to take it a step further and see a drastic reduction in printed textbooks. As a student myself, I would love to be able to download textbooks to my PC and a Kindle-like device each semester (even better, I would only need to pay for a semester's worth of access).
Digital textbooks wouldn't put an end to the University Bookstore - they could still "sell" the content - it would just move their business in a different direction.
Thanks!
Jami
Kindles and more
Jami,
Having not yet been fired up about the Kindle (hah!), I hadn't thought much about that angle, either. As someone who has kept many textbooks and coursepacks even from undergrad days, I always lean toward the relative permanence of the physical book -- but I must acknowledge the reality of a book used for a semester, then tossed/sold back. For the students who want that, that could also be a great model to make their textbook burden much lower. I like it!
some other thoughts
Interesting ideas Patrick. I definitely hear what you're saying.
I just thought I'd add in a couple more points that (pro or con) might affect the viability of such an idea. At U Florida, where I recently graduated from, there's a perpendicular argument running between the university bookstore (which is partnered with Borders) and the half dozen or so independent bookstores that hover around the campus. Some departments, like English, have a history of faculty and TAs only sending their textbook orders to one of these independents and avoiding the campus bookstore altogether.
Many of the arguments for this practice run along the same lines you mention here, but in the opposite direction. From a faculty point of view, sometimes there's an advantage to selecting texts later rather than earlier, and that's something an independent bookstore can be cool with (say you've been a customer of theirs for years) because they have the flexibility and the relationship there. At UF, at least, faculty are now contractually compelled to use the school's bookstore and textbook adoption reporting system (after much wrangling and rancor, I understand). So sending your students to support an independent bookstore has a sort of political value to it as well.
To that kind of person, it sounds like the EduGraph might impose the same kind of inflexibility and overdetermination that has become associated with the Campus Bookstore.
Then again, one thing that my students often talked about regarding books is that the campus bookstore is already hooked into the financial aid system, so students with aid can have their books subsidized or have their payments for books deferred until later in the semester.
However, I'm sure these things (flexibility and support for financial aid) could be accomplished within the system you're envisioning. It's just interesting to think about how the institution of higher education is evolving and how retail fits into that.
Ah! Many good points!
Yes! I remember at UW-Madison a similar situation--various bookstores would work with faculty and TAs in helpful ways. Important that that's not lost.
Eeek--anytime I hear the words "contractually obligated" I shudder. And so what I imagine needs deep revision here. I don't ultimately want anything to be an obligation. I was probably carried away by the possibilities of radical openness. So maybe any list of course books would need to include a list of bookstore partners where they're available and push business their way. Might become a balance between wanting to support the bookstores you want to support, and letting students determine what's best for them. For that to work, though, bookstores would want a precise tally of how many sales they would actually make. That's a devilish detail I hadn't thought through.
Also hadn't thought of the financial aid connection -- another essential point. Again, I clearly don't want to mess with the things that work well to help students.
I agree that it could all come together, but there's more info analysis and sharing than I had thought. There's a lot of work to figure out where the best deal is for students, and to not clobber the really good indy bookstores. Optimistically, this could all come together into a good spur for innovation from teachers, institutions, and retailers alike.
Many thanks...you gave needed nuance.
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