Student Congress members passed resolutions Tuesday creating a committee to study textbook pricing and commending the UNC Board of Trustees on its rejection of a night parking permit plan.
The five members of Congress appointed to serve on the textbook committee will determine whether textbook prices actually have increased and investigate the possibilities of a textbook rental program, said freshman Jennifer Orr, the committee chairwoman.
Orr said the committee also will look into the possibility of publishing textbooks' International Standard Book Numbers, designations that provide standard numbers to each edition of every book published worldwide.
Compiling textbooks' ISBNs would make it easier for students to buy books from alternate vendors, Speaker Pro Tem Matt O'Brien said.
Orr said the committee's goal is to institute a policy that would help reduce textbook costs for students. "We have heard a lot of appeal from students for some sort of forum on this," she said.
Orr said the committee will investigate programs at peer institutions -- like Appalachian State University -- that already have textbook rental programs in place. "If they can make it work, we're hoping we can find a way to make it work," she said.
O'Brien said he is confident that the committee will create some form of rental program, which could be implemented as early as fall 2003.
But he said the program might not be equally effective for all majors or classes. Literature classes, where unchanged versions of books are used year after year, will benefit from a rental program. But introductory level textbooks are usually revised every two years, making a rental program more difficult, he said.
Many texts are sold with workbooks, study guides and software, which are harder to rent, he said. "Textbook rental isn't going to fit for all types of classes."
