Students find alternatives to campus bookstore
When Sven Peery heard about a new bookstore, Aggie Books, he immediately decided to check it out.
Aggie Books, a newly opened textbook exchange store, is just one place Utah State University students are going to find books for their upcoming classes this year.
Peery, a junior majoring in nutrition science, said any alternative is better than the campus bookstore.
“The textbooks there are just too expensive,” he said.
After transferring from Brigham Young University-Idaho, Darcy Rhodes spent her first day in Logan getting books for two classes. She spent $219 on books for two classes at the USU Bookstore.
“I would have gone somewhere else if I’d known,” she said.
“Somewhere else” might have just been Aggie Books, which is located just north of Fredrico’s Pizza. The owners have successfully operated a book exchange for two years in Pocatello, Idaho, for Idaho State University students, and opened this semester for the first time for USU students.
Jason Fisher, co-owner of Aggie books, said the owners had been looking into opening an off-campus bookstore in Logan for the past year.
“We do really well because we sell our books at a discount compared to the on-campus bookstore,” Fisher said. “We can save students on the average $40 or $50.”
Fisher said they buy books back from students at the end of the semester, and then order from wholesale and publishing companies to fill the rest of their inventory.
Another place to find almost cashless students looking for books is University Book and Gift, on Main Street.
Richard Steele, the owner of University Book and Gift, said his book exchange business started out just selling drafting supplies to architectural students at USU. The students started asking if he also had a needed math or chemistry book, he said.
“I started to carry books since students were coming here anyway,” Steele said.
That was about five years ago.
Steele said students can buy books from him for at least 10 percent less than at the campus bookstore, and possibly up to 20 percent less. Buy-back prices, he said, are “neck-and-neck with the USU Bookstore,” but his buy-back prices never go down like USU’s do after they’ve met their quota.
Another reason Steele said he started his book exchange is because he saw how expensive it was to go to college.
“The costs of college are getting out of hand,” he said.
Steele said he knew he couldn’t change the cost of tuition, fees or anything like that. The cost of books though, was something he could change. So he did.
Chapter Two Books, a bookstore at 100 E. 130 North, also caters to students at times.
Jan Tucker, who has managed Chapter Two Books for it’s 16 years, said many students come in looking for books every year. She also said books for graduate seminars and regular courses are ordered through the store.
Tucker said many students who come in are looking for trade books, as opposed to a textbook. A good number of the students, she said, are looking for books for an English class.
Other students try to buy and sell their books using the online book exchange (http://bookexchange.usu.edu/), other online bookstores, or by walking into a class and saying, “Anyone want to buy my book?”
On Saturday, Alison Fotheringham, a senior in elementary education, and Kevin Stewart, a junior in business administration, stepped out of the USU Bookstore empty-handed.
“I’m shopping around to see all the prices,” Fotheringham said.
Both Fotheringham and Stewart said they were going to check out “that new bookstore by Fredrico’s” and “the one on Main Street.”
With more and more places to buy books other than USU’s bookstore, students will no doubt be expanding their geographical shopping boundaries this semester.
emilieholmes@cc.usu.edu