University of Virginia Library

Rising Book Prices

As the letter elsewhere on this page and
the story on the front page will tell you,
University students have been hit hard in the
pocket by rising book prices. Textbook costs
have been rising at what seem to be
astonishing rates over the past several years
and students tend to look first at what seems
to be the primary source of their discontent -
the Corner book stores.

But inflation, and not the book store
monopoly, is the cause of the price increases.
Checks with the publishers of several of the
books which have higher prices pasted over
the cost printed on the cover revealed that the
paste-on price is indeed the publisher's price.
It's just that the publishers have been raising
prices faster than they can change the printed
price.

Anderson Bros. and University Book Store
pay a wholesale price that is 20 percent less
than retail - the standard markup in the retail
book industry. That they have not been guilty
of price gouging is obvious. That they have no
need to is also obvious.

The owners of the two bookstores got
their monopoly as a political plum. That same
political pull should enable them to keep the
monopoly unless they can be proven guilty of
business malpractice. Their business is assured.
It is in their best interests to keep their
monopoly by charging only what the
publisher specifies. Then they can feel morally
righteous all the way to the bank.

Doing something about the problem of
rising book prices thus becomes a search for a
means to cut some of the bite from the 20
percent markup. The Corner merchants, in
business to make a profit, are obviously not
going to voluntarily reduce their profit
margin.

But other universities have been able to set
up successful co-op bookstores. Full prices are
charged, but after overhead costs are totaled
and removed the remaining receipts - the
merchant's profit - are returned to the
students who bought books and supplies at
the store. Generally the savings comes to
about 10 percent.

Student Council has batted this idea
around before, but not much has come of it.
If a co-op bookstore is ever to be successfully
established, it will require a joint effort of
patronage from students and co-operation
from faculty members who place book orders
to make it work.

We feel it's worth the effort.