By JARED THELER
As one of the founders of The Vault Textbook Exchange, I just wanted to reply to the article in Tuesday's paper, 'Monopoly stereotypes false; bookstore exists to serve students, faculty.' While it was a little negative and ill informed I would like to thank the author because as they say, 'any publicity is good publicity!' Let me take now a few moments to clarify a few of the articles points.
Point one: The most obvious fallacy in the article was about the American Heritage textbook not being resold next semester. Take a sigh of relief American Heritage students, because the same textbook for the class will be reused. I verified that myself with the American Heritage Department, Dr. Fox and the bookstore. The article talked about the textbook changing, when in fact it wasn't the textbook, but the collection of readings in a separate book.
Point two: Our primary intent in establishing the book exchange was not money driven. Our initial reasoning in creating The Vaults was to provide a service to the students, get some good experience, learn a whole lot and have some fun along the way.
Furthermore, I don't intend on staying at BYU my whole life (I'm only on the 7-year program) and if the exchange works we have discussed turning the program over to BYUSA as a student service program.
Point three: When we say the bookstore has a monopoly on the market, price is what usually pops into people's heads. The purpose in providing competition for a monopoly is not only to lower prices but spark innovation and continual improvement. I am convinced the majority of people working at the bookstore don't 'have it in for us!' Most have good intentions and live by those.
However, good intentions don't imply efficiency or innovation. Competition only gives incentive to the bookstore to provide increasing levels of quality service. If you would like to further debate the issue of competition and monopolies, look up the economics department Web site, track down a professor and see what they say on the matter.
Finally, the article Tuesday made reference to the prophet as being the final authority in the bookstore's chain of command (in a very round about way). While this is true, I hope the prophet isn't spending too much time thinking about used textbooks; I'm pretty sure he has more pressing issues. The bookstore has it's own budget and profits separate from the university. The church is a major shareholder of KSL and up until November, the Z.C.M.I. department store chain. However, you don't see the prophet counseling members to watch only KSL or shop only at Z.C.M.I.
Our book exchange exists to improve student life and give students an alternative. Period.
If you have notions otherwise you need to read and find out more. One statement the article highlighted is that Varsitybooks.com doesn't care about BYU students, and they're probably right. But we're different because we are for the students and by the students!