By Amorie Sheen
amorie@newsroom.byu.edu
Soon students will be able to know what textbooks they need without searching through endless shelves in a crowded bookstore.
The BYU Bookstore is working to post an online book list by Fall Semester 2001.
Roger Reynolds, director of the BYU Bookstore, said the book list will be accessible through Route Y three different ways.
A link in the Route Y interchange and two in the AIM program, one as a printable text file and the other next to each class a student is registered for, Reynolds said.
'The objective is to have the book list with the class list,' Reynolds said.
The idea is that students would be able to view the books required for their class and the price of each book, both new and used.
Brent Laker, assistant director of the BYU Bookstore, said the online book list will be helpful for students because they will know the prices.
'You can have your book information as soon as we get it,' Laker said.
This will allow students to buy their books early if they want and to know early on what books they need, he said.
The BYU Bookstore is concerned that students will begin buying more of their books from online bookstores, Laker said.
He said the BYU Bookstore supports students in buying their books from wherever they want.
'We are not a monopoly,' Laker said. 'We are not holding anyone hostage to buy their books here.'
Laker said there are advantages for students to buy their books from the BYU Bookstore.
One of those advantages is buyback.
'Our buyback is the largest in the country,' Laker said.
If a substantial number of students buy from other sources than the Bookstore, the number of books the Bookstore will buy back at the end of the semester will go down and students will ultimately feel the impact, Laker said.
The standard percentage paid on buyback in the country is 50 percent or less, at BYU the average is 60 percent, Laker said.
Another advantage to purchasing at the Bookstore is time, Laker said.
If students order their books from an online store they never know when it might come.
'You place an order with one of these guys and you cross your fingers and hope it comes,' Laker said.
Laker said price was another advantage to the BYU Bookstore.
He said The Bookstore is comparable in price to online bookstores and less than most other college bookstores.
The Bookstore has a 23 percent mark-up on the new books they sell, whereas the standard college bookstore mark-up is 25 percent, Laker said.
One of the difficulties of the online book list will be the dependency on faculty to submit their book lists, Laker said.
He said a small number of the faculty does not turn in their textbook requests on time, but the faculty is not always to blame for not turning in the book list.
A few teachers do not get assigned the classes they are to teach until a short time before the semester starts.