Many universities and colleges’ entered a new era of textbook renting this semester, which could save students almost 50 percent on book costs. But University students will continue to feel the pinch of textbook purchases as rentals will not be offered on or near campus. Barnes & Noble College Booksellers announced Jan. 11 a new textbook rental program for college students that could save them millions of dollars across the country. Three of its 636 campus bookstores tested the program last fall. The program has expanded to 25 bookstores since then – not including the LSU bookstore. ‘We’ve had a tremendous response from students and faculty to our rental program and as a result have continued to expand it to other colleges and universities across the country,’ said Max Roberts, President of Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, in a Jan. 11 news release. Barnes & Noble plans to expand its program to more colleges and universities in the coming months, according to the news release. The University of South Carolina has more than 220 titles available for rent in a pilot program that began this semester. Students pay 42 percent of the price to rent a book and return it at the end of the semester, said South Carolina Bookstore textbook supervisor Josh Richardson. Most students decide to still purchase textbooks for their courses within their majors but prefer to rent books for other classes and electives, Richardson said. Richardson said it’s slightly cheaper to purchase used textbooks and sell them back at half price, but there’s no guarantee a student will get money back for a book at the end of the semester. ‘Renting is definitely the safer option,’ he said. ‘But it’s required to bring the rental back, and there’s no money back.’ Bob Prescott, book manager at the Co-op Book Store on Burbank Drive, said he doesn’t expect textbook rentals to become an option for LSU students anytime soon. ‘The only way you can make money off a rental system is using the book for two years, and there’s not a requirement to even be used more than one semester [at LSU],’ he said. ‘The University would be the one who would initiate that, and every professor would have to adopt to use a book for two years.’ Renting textbooks has more negative than positive aspects, Prescott said. ‘The bad part about it is you may decide you want to buy the book to keep it, but you have to pay the full face value of the book even though you’ve rented it,’ he said. Students can’t highlight or write in rented textbooks and must return the book in the same shape they checked it out, he said. ‘If you lose the book, you pay the rental, and then you buy it,’ he said. ‘So, you’ve paid 150 percent of the book, and you don’t have the book.’ Rented textbooks don’t include additional materials like CDs or workbooks, Prescott said. Anna Clark, animal science freshman, said she spent $420 on textbooks this semester. ‘I would definitely rather rent,’ she said. ‘They’re textbooks. I’m not going to keep them for 10 years.’ —- Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]