Need a Textbook?

As some of you know, and others may not, Follet Books has exclusivity rights on the Marietta College campus, meaning that the Administration has granted Follet a monopoly on this campus. However, many options have presented themselves to students here, and at other institutions across the country as similar situations have arisen. Many of the alternatives exist on the web, with half.com, and amazon.com being the main two companies. A new site, swichtextbooks.com will soon be open for business. The site is supported by Baltimore Solutions and the United States Postal Service. The site will allow students to submit a list of books they have, as well as books they need, and the computes will automatically match the your need with someone’s book. This new site presents many different issues for Follet, if this site can be publicized on this campus, and all the students use the service, what is Follet going to do? Well, as the Supply of books increases and all else remains constant, prices will fall, and Follet will have to keep up. As the price of the books fall students will experience increased consumer surplus. Hopefully this will happen, and we can all pay a little bit less for our textbooks.