UofL and Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, which operates the campus bookstore, are teaming up to offer the program. It will allow students to buy new or used books or to rent them for the semester.
All of us are concerned about the rising cost of higher education, said Uof L President James Ramsey. This is one way to help keep costs down for our students. In many cases, it simply makes more sense to rent than to buy books.
Along with delivering savings of more than 50 percent over the cost of purchasing a new, printed textbook, the Uof L rental program offers students the flexibility and conveniences they want most, including:
- The convenience of renting books either in the campus bookstore or through the bookstore’s website, eliminating the need to pay shipping costs or wait for books to arrive in the mail
- The choice to return rental textbooks to the campus bookstore or via mail using free return shipping
- The flexibility to use a wide variety of rental fee payment options, including financial aid, campus debit cards, cash and credit cards
- The ability to highlight text and take notes in the rented books
- The freedom to keep books for up to 10 days after the last day of final exams
- The reassurance of getting automated, reminder e-mail notification that the rental period is ending and to return the books to the bookstore
Barnes & Noble is launching similar programs at hundreds of stores throughout the country this fall.
The pilot program we offered Uof L last spring was a tremendous success, with more than 800 books rented, said Scott Schuknecht, UofL bookstore manager.
For the fall term, the bookstore will offer more than 300 titles for rent, which translates to thousands of books.
Students who fail to return their books to the bookstore or whose books are returned in unusable condition are subject to replacement and processing fees. However, very few books were not returned during the pilot program, officials said.
The UofL bookstore has two locations: first floor of the Student Activities Center on Belknap Campus and in the K Building on Floyd Street at the Health Sciences Center.