By Stacey Kukkonen
skukkonen@
mininggazette.com
HOUGHTON - Classes at Michigan Technological University resume Monday and students will head to the bookstore for textbooks.
But this school year, the Campus Bookstore, located in the Memorial Union Building, and The College Bookshelf, located at the Pearl Street Mall, have a special service for students - renting textbooks.
Mark Johnson, manager at Campus Bookstore, said students renting books for classes has started to gain momentum.
"It's another option for students," he said. "We rent new and used books for the students."
Johnson said as prices of textbooks increase almost every year, it's important to be able to offer students reasonably priced books, even if it means renting them out at a lower cost. Students are also able to charge their textbooks and school supplies to their student accounts and pay the university back.
"I try to make it as easy and affordable for them to be able to buy their books," Johnson said.
Making the process even easier for students, the staff at the bookstore handle online orders from the students, rather than have students peruse each shelf for their books, he said.
"Right now, every morning, we get web orders that come in," he said. "When the students get back here, they can pick up their web orders."
For the process, the students need to give the bookstore their credit card number to be placed on file. If they don't return the books by the date specified at the end of the semester, they automatically get charged the difference for the book.
"If it was a $100 book and they rent it for $50, we'll charge them the other $50," he said.
In the future, Johnson said the bookstore may look into eBook use and different methods to help students save money.
However, rented books cannot be sold back, but rather just returned.
At The College Bookshelf, owner Bob Weiber said they also have a selection of books available for students to rent. To rent books, the students must agree to the terms and conditions and at the end of the term, the books are returned.
"We started last semester with a smaller selection," Weiber said. "We expanded our selection."
