The Associated Students of DVC has several proposals in the works for lessening the sticker shock of textbooks. One calls for a textbook rental program that would allow students to rent their books. Another would expand the library’s textbook reserve program by using money from the ASDVC budget. These resolutions suggest instructors limit textbook bundles, use Ebooks, use the same edition from one semester to the next, unless there are significant changes and write their own textbooks. Kertbundit says he is passionate about this issue because students need textbooks to excel in class, yet they “are crazily expensive.”

ASDVC Rental Program Would Reimburse 67 Percent of Book Price Back to Students’ Pockets 
By: Ariel Messman-Rucker and Kristen Akhbari

The Associated Students of DVC, in partnership with the campus bookstore, is developing a new book rental program in an attempt to combat high textbook prices.

“The prices of textbooks…could be the difference between students coming back next year or not,” said Anna Braginsky, vice president of executive affairs for the ASDVC.

Sierra Yawono, an ASDVC vice president and chair of the committee drafting the proposal, said she hopes the program will begin at the start of spring semester.

“I know how expensive the books are,” Yawono said. “If you take five classes for instance, books can be about $500, and that’s only if the books are $100 each. Some are $150 or more.”

Once in effect, the book rental program would be run as part of the bookstore, working much the same way as the current book buy-back process, but with more return for the students.

At the start of the semester, students would pay the same amount to “borrow” a textbook as they would pay for a used book. But, if they returned it in good condition at the end of the semester, they would receive 67 percent of their original purchase price, according to the ASDVC’s proposal.

In other words, instead of paying 100 percent of the price, they would ultimately pay only 33 percent.

Because the bookstore only guarantees a buy-back of 50 percent, the final 17 percent would come directly from the ASDVC’s reserve account, said Bill Oye, dean of student life.

ASDVC President Bundit Kertbundit said, “When the bookstore does buy-backs, the best you can get is 50 percent of what you paid, and buy-backs aren’t guaranteed.”

Students would be required to purchase a $7 ASDVC sticker to participate, offsetting some of the initial investment the ASDVC made in the program as well as giving the student an added discount on their textbooks.

Before the textbook rental proposal can be approved by the ASDVC, the legislative committee must decide which textbooks and how many copies to include in the program.

“We can’t purchase a lot of books,” Kertbundit said. “The max our budget will allow is about 100 books, which is around $10,000.”

“For the 101st person, there’s nothing we can do. But this isn’t just short run, we’re thinking long run.”

Kertbundit said the legislative committee is having a difficult time choosing the textbooks.

“We have to have assurances from the department they will commit with that textbook for at least two years, or we will be losing our money,” he said.

ASDVC to Beef Up Number of Reserve Textbooks in Library to Help Reduce Wallet Pinch 

By: Eva Chiang

The DVC library’s reserve desk is getting some heavy traffic since its purchase of 37 of the college’s most expensive required textbooks.

The books – which cost from $90.75 to $165.65 – are used in 244 sections of 50 courses, according to Ann Patterson, dean of the library.

To date, the entire collection has been checked out more than 885 times.

“I think this is a brilliant textbooks alternative for students who have difficulty purchasing expensive textbooks, since they can visit the library and borrow these books,” said ASDVC President Bundit Kertbundit,

The library purchased 37 textbooks under the Textbook Reserve Pilot Project, bringing the total number of textbooks on reserve to 492, including titles put there by teachers.

Students can borrow a textbook on reserve for two- hour -loans, or one week if there is more than one copy.

“It gives students an incentive to go to the library and study there in the first place,” said student Sheila Mirzai.

The DVC Foundation, which does fundraising for the school, awarded the library $5,000 to create a reserve textbook section last spring.

In a letter to the library, Cindy Goga, director of the DVC Foundation, said the grant was, “…to make available multiple copies of our most expensive textbooks to students for studying purposes, potentially eliminating the need for financially challenged students to purchase these books.”

Given the project’s success, the library has pitched the idea of another grant to the Foundation to continue and expand the program.

“We have always thought that it was important to provide textbooks for students,” said Ann Patterson, dean of the library, “[but] we don’t have enough money to buy library books and textbooks.”

The library sent Goga a report outlining its process in selecting the textbooks to purchase and informal results of student use of the materials. The next step would be for Goga to share this report with the Foundation Board.

Student Shadé Ogunleye said she hopes the library continues to have a textbook collection.

“It’s good to have the textbooks in the library because I could go into the library and do my homework in- between classes,” she said.

Should another bout of funding be approved, the library plans to purchase textbooks with the highest demand, Patterson said.