A few years ago, I wrote a little article on “How to build your own Psychology library.” Times have indeed changed and I thought I should update my story with a blog on this changing subject. I hope this answers some of the questions I have been asked over the years. Read more…
College students in the United States frequently complain about the cost of textbooks. How would you feel, however, if ONE textbook cost 20% of your annual income? That is essentially the problem in developing nations like Uganda. To combat this problem in the past, some organizations have collected used Read more…
I’m looking at my last post, and it’s August 6th! Not that anyone likes hearing excuses, but I’ve been polishing a first draft of a book, and haven’t had a moment to spare. In the meantime, I’m enjoying Ben P’s blog about psychology–gives me an opportunity to brush up Read more…
I was cruising around R. Kennedy’s website after he commented on my textbook pricing post, and found lots of interesting stuff. I especially liked the link to the Consumption Rules blog, where the following breakdown for textbook pricing was discussed:
Consumption Rules says the data come from the National Association of College Stores. Of course, this only works for brand new books. Once the bookstore buys the book back from students, usually at a very reduced price, they resell at nearly new costs. This saves the bookstore all of those nasty costs that start with “publisher” or “author.” In other words, the people who produced the work in the first place only get paid the first semester or quarter the book is used. (more…)
I’m definitely dating myself when I say that the average hardcover textbook I bought at UCLA cost around $10. New. Of course minimum wage was $1.65, and I was delighted to earn $2.74 as an admitting clerk in the UCLA Emergency Room (I learned a lot about psychology in Read more…