NIU officials presented estimated start-up and yearly maintenance costs for a textbook rental program to the Illinois Board of Higher Education at a meeting last week.

“Right now we are not doing anything except keeping IBHE informed,” said vice provost Earl Seaver. “We will not be starting a rental program right away. It is an awful lot to set up, and money has to come from somewhere.”

At the IBHE’s request, the University Council formed a committee to study the cost of setting up such a program.

The committee looked at storage space issues, new software management programs, personnel costs and textbook costs, he said.

“As far as the start up and maintaining it, it’s not cheap,” Seaver said. “There were a number of individuals that got together to discuss what this costs. It took us some time to gather the information.”

Besides cost, other problems exist with instituting a rental program, said University Bookstore Director Mitch Kielb.

“The one thing that happens in rental programs is they are usually run for undergraduate programs only,” Kielb said. “They are also restricted to non-disposable workbooks. All textbook rental programs sell some textbooks.”

A new software management system would need to be introduced to keep track of the books.

“It would be a whole different method of doing business,” Kielb said. “You have to make substantial changes to the physical layout of the store.”

Other universities expressed concern that the costs of the textbook rental program would be passed on to the students, Seaver said.

“We were not saying this, other universities were,” Seaver said.

The universities also proposed alternative solutions to the textbook rental program.

“We are looking at a whole bunch of alternatives,” Seaver said. “A book buyback system can be very viable and can be pretty comparable (to a book rental program).”

Alternative ideas submitted to the IBHE include: a book buyback program, book exchanges, short-term loan programs for students who cannot afford to purchase books at the start of the semester and the state of Illinois eliminating or reducing sales tax on textbooks and educational supplies.

Educating faculty about negotiating lower book prices, another idea presented to the IBHE, is an important way to control textbook costs, Seaver said.

“Faculty have to be made aware of how they can try to negotiate for lower book prices for students,” Seaver said. “Faculty get impressed by the publisher that the only way they can get this book is to buy it with the CD.”

Faculty using course packs and electronic readings would also save students money, Seaver said.

The University Bookstore and Seaver conducted a survey by purchasing a typical freshman’s load of books at the new book price. At the end of the semester, they ran the buyback prices.

“We found that it does reduce the cost to the student to use the buy-back system,” Seaver said. “We are going to do it again at the end of the spring semester to check for the whole year.”

Seaver said NIU also needs to work with students to educate them about alternative ways to purchase books.

Purchasing used books, buying books online and searching non-traditional places to buy text books would save students money as well, Seaver said.