the good old days: free textbooks from publishers

[AvidReader]

Copyright clearance fees can mount up in a hurry on bespoke article collections like that.  It can run into several dollars per article, per copy printed.  Our CC guy used to tell me stories about profs getting sticker shock when he told them how much some of the articles they wanted to include in their course packs were going to cost. 

Sure, but all but three texts in the book were available online for free--not even through university databases. While I understand that reprinting in a textbook necessitates negotiating a separate set of rights and fees, asking students to pay so much for material that they can already access for free is a hard sell, though most didn't notice.

In the 1980s I don't believe I ever spent $300 on books in a single semester, and all my class texts were real, honest-to-goodness books.  It would have been much higher had I been in the natural sciences.

Yes, that aligns with my own undergrad experience in the late '90s and early '00s. I did have two or three of the old-school custom textbooks (written by professors and printed and bound by the bookstore for about $20 each). I remember being flabbergasted when my biology textbook cost over $100 used.

AR.

[apl68]

Nearly all of the material was available online for free?  Why in the world did the prof not just give the students links, then?

[marshwiggle]

Nearly all of the material was available online for free?  Why in the world did the prof not just give the students links, then?

Maybe a bit of anachronistic culture; i.e. the idea that students will expect a "textbook" for a course. In the last couple of decades, it's become much more common for a course to not require a textbook, although before the internet*, (technically, before the WWW, aka into the 90's), a textbook was pretty much assumed.

[Puget]

You can still get them, you just have to ask. I've never had a problem getting free examination copies, and we always get free desk copies for TAs just be emailing our publisher rep.

[Anselm]

Now that you mention it I have not seen the resellers in a few years.  For many years I was honestly able to tell them that the publishers are not sending me anything.  Maybe I got one book about two years ago.

[apl68]

We have old textbooks donated to our public library quite often.  Now and then people buy them, so we try to keep a selection of the more presentable ones on hand.  Most of what we receive is very old indeed and not worth keeping around.  Only last week we received a box of 40-year-old textbooks, including a high school reading book that I remember having had at school and an antique computer science textbook.  The patron who brought us this big box of nothing had the nerve to ask for a note from us so that he could claim his munificent donation on his taxes.  It's usually the least valuable donations that people want to try to claim.

[kaysixteen]

You said he had the nerve to ask for a tax write-off receipt for this box of 40yo junk... what did you say/do?   And how do you ascertain how much to write any such donation receipts for?

[dismalist]

I have in hand an original of Samuelson's Economics, sixth edition, an intro text, which I bought in 1966. In substance, it's still damned good! Used copies sell for $40 or so, according to Google. That's not nothing.

Over the years I have donated many, many books to the university library. I never asked for a receipt and none were ever rejected for being of too little value.

I can understand that a library does not wish to be used as a garbage disposal. Posting a minimum dollar value for donated books might help. I suggest $40. :-)

[mamselle]

We must have had Econ the same year. My Samuelson's copy is about that vintage as well.

Likewise, all my high school texts and the college texts I bought (and kept, and wrote in, and studied from, and still use for both teaching and writing/research checkups).

If it's a good book, I keep it.

M.

[apl68]

You said he had the nerve to ask for a tax write-off receipt for this box of 40yo junk... what did you say/do?   And how do you ascertain how much to write any such donation receipts for?

We just have a standard donor form that says that X donated X number of items to the library.  We never attempt to place a value on individual items.  That's not considered good practice with any donated items.  What the donor does with the form for tax purposes is up to the donor.  I hope that they don't succeed in scamming the government out of much money that way.

The great majority of our book donors don't ask for anything for tax purposes.  They're just trying to get rid of books they no longer need (or have inherited--several times a year we get massive donations that amount to some recently deceased person's lifetime accumulation of books), and don't feel right just dumping them all.  Most of what we get is total junk.  There's not even any feasible way of recycling it locally (We do recycle some library discards through one of our main vendors).  The library is where most of the town's unwanted printed material--books, magazines, old catalogs, outdated Sunday school quarterlies--comes to die.  One irony of being a librarian is that you find yourself having to discard an awful lot of books.

[apl68]

We go to the trouble of accepting and sorting through any and all book donations because we do glean some wheat from among the chaff.  That material goes into the Friends of the Library book sale.  We have a permanent sale room, which is the closest thing to a book store for forty miles around.  We've also done special book sales that we publicize.  Donated magazines that look like somebody might be interested in them go on the free table outside.  The most popular free table item, based on how quickly it tends to disappear, is National Geographic.

Very rarely we'll find something that we can actually use to fill a gap in the library's collection.  We also keep old children's books for distribution through our Little Free Library at a local grade school.  Which reminds me--I have to remember to restock that!  It's only a couple of blocks from my house, but I keep forgetting to run by there.

[Aster]

The book buyers began prowling the hallways at Big Urban College this week.

[Dismal]

I did just get a book today! Unsolicited. I will keep it. I do remember the booksellers coming by multiple times a semester and how it was great to get a handful of bills for books that I had never asked for.