George Bush on Thursday renewed the Higher Education Act, or Higher Education Opportunity Act as it’s referred to on THOMAS. I couldn’t get the text of the law at the GPO (I’m not sure it’s available yet) but I was able to get the text of the final version (enrolled bill) at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:6:./temp/~c110KbjY2h:: .
This law is eight million pages long. No, it just seems that way. Actually it’s over 1100 pages long. The part I’m looking at is Section 133, “Textbook Information”.
The law requires several things on behalf of a publisher and a college bookstore when it comes to textbooks. When publishers send out desk copies/ evaluation copies, they are also required to include:
1) The price at which the publisher would make the book available to the college bookstore and the price at which the book is available to the public. 2) The copyright date of the three previous additions (if applicable) 3) A description of the substantial content revisions made between the book and the previous edition 4) Whether the book is available in any other format, and if so how much it costs to bookstore and public.
Publishers are also required to make “bundled” college textbooks (textbooks that are sold with CDs or other supplemental material) available “unbundled”, with each item sold separately.
Colleges and universities receiving Federal financial assistance will also be required to disclose ISBN numbers and retail prices of books on their online course schedules. In the cases when that’s not possible (materials don’t have ISBNs) then additional information is required instead, including author/title/publisher/copyright date. Institutions’ written course schedules are required to note when such information is available online and where.
In addition, colleges and universities getting Federal funding are also required to make available to affiliated bookstores (that’s bookstores with which the institution has a relationship, not ALL bookstores) information about the institutions course schedule, and information about books required for each course. There’s some student information required as well (number of students enrolled in each course with a maximum student enrollment.) Institutions disclosing this information are encouraged (ENCOURAGED I guess does not mean required) to also provide students information on renting textbooks or purchasing used textbooks, available guaranteed textbook buyback programs, and alternative institutional content delivery programs if available.
If I’m reading this right, these requirements will go into effect July 1, 2010.
