Via Slashdot:
The Harvard Crimson reports that the Harvard Coop (bookstore) asked Jarret A. Zafran to leave the store after writing down the prices of six books required for a junior Social Studies tutorial.
Their store, their rules — but a sad indicator of the textbook marketplace these days.
Even though it’s Harvard
Can’t they just look up the titles on Amazon?
Re:Even though it’s Harvard
Some schools do not make the book list available to students in such a way as to make it useful. Often edition information is omitted, sometimes there is a ‘course pack’ and it is given a bundled ISBN when included with some consumable workbook or other fairly useless material. With a CD, without a CD there are so many variables as to make the purchasing of the correct text almost impossible.
If the schools had the best interest of the students in mind, rather than the best interest of their contract booksellers, they would provide ISBNs for individual texts or complete bibliographic information so that students could find the texts they need at competitive prices.
The idea that a books ISBN could be IP is simply absurd. Would you shop at a store that refused to allow you to comparison shop? I wouldn’t. This is one of the few times I think buying something, with knowledge that you are going to return it is acceptable. Buy the books, write down the ISBNs, comparison shop and then return them. Tell them you have decided to leave school and become a Sherpa.
Re:Even though it’s Harvard
>>Tell them you have decided to leave school and become a Sherpa.
It’s a library trade! http://youtube.com/watch?v=469Wm8sy4SA