Students seeking book-buying alternatives after SBX closed
The Student Book Exchange is gone, but the impact of its demise will be felt throughout the semester.
Jeff Goncer, a Mount Pleasant senior, said he frequently went to the SBX when buying textbooks.
“If I couldn’t find a certain book I’d go to the (Central Michigan University) Bookstore,” Goncer said.
The CMU Bookstore in the Bovee University Center is one of a few options students have since the SBX closed in July. Other commonly used sources for buying or renting texts are websites like Chegg and e-books.
Goncer, a 21-year-old geography major, said he believes he’ll be turning to the Internet for texts this semester.
“My brother has Amazon Prime, so I’ll probably [use] Amazon,” he said.
In a 2012 interview with U.S News and World Report, Bruce Hildebrand, executive director of higher education at the Association of American Publishers, said high textbook prices are largely related to how long it takes to make them.
Hildebrand said textbooks often require three to five years to produce, while some science books need more than 10 years to be developed.
The length of time these operations take largely contributes to book costs, often causing e-books to not have much lower price tags than the physical copies.
Goncer said while he will use the source that has the cheapest books, he found SBX’s prices more reasonable.
“I feel like their used books were really cheap, and renting books there was cheap,” he said.
