By Janelle Walker
UVSC”s refusal to hand over a full list of International Standard Book Numbers has caused a ruckus this month at an Orem bookstore.
The owners of Beat the Bookstore appealed the Utah Attorney General”s Office decision, which said textbook ISBN numbers are protected under Utah law.
Beat the Bookstore has been open for a year, selling mainly used textbooks and buying back textbooks from UVSC students. The bookstore has also been getting a large number of BYU customers, said Beat the Bookstore co-owner, Mike Winward.
“We haven”t been able to sell a lot of books to BYU students because they have to have the ISBN numbers for their books, and we don”t get those from BYU,” Winward said.
International Standard Book Numbers are the unique identifiers for textbooks. Without ISBN numbers, bookstores cannot know for sure if they have the correct books, Winward said.
“We opened a year ago and every semester except this one, UVSC has given us the booklist,” Winward said. “It is never complete and always has inaccuracies, but at least they”ve given us the list.”
Beat the Bookstore owners, Mike Winward and David Monk submitted requests for the numbers under Utah”s Government Records and Access Management Act, which defined what government information could be kept from the public.
For Fall Semester 2003, UVSC gave Beat the Bookstore an incomplete list of the adoption forms from the professors, instead of the ISBN numbers for the books.
The BYU Bookstore also holds back lists from other bookstores.
“We don”t share our lists with anyone,” said Brent Laker, associate director of the BYU Bookstore. “It is material that we”ve accumulated and worked hard to obtain.”
Book lists, many including the ISBN numbers, are available for the public at the information counter, according to Laker.
“Our function is that we provide to students what they need to acquire books,” he said.
Prices at university bookstores and independently owned bookstores are generally the same, Laker said.
According to Winward, Beat the Bookstore will fall far short of its projected $500,000 in sales for fall due to how late it will be in ordering books.
“I think that students should have a choice of where to buy books,” Winward said. “Universities should publish ISBN numbers to students so they could shop on the Internet, shop us, shop the bookstore, etc.”
