Bookstore confusion results in approximately 60 students being charged for textbook rentals

~There are 571 textboooks for purchase in the bookstore, 312 of which are available for rent

College is an expensive endeavor for most students and the cost of books alone is always rising, but at Southeast Missouri State University there is now a program that aims to alleviate some of the book costs.

The recently remodeled Southeast Bookstore began offering discounted prices for many textbooks through a renting program called Rent-A-Text last semester. The program is through Follet; the company that had recently acquired the Southeast Bookstore. Since last semester a few issues have arisen with both students and bookstore staff that employees are hoping to address this semester.

The textbooks available at the bookstore. Photo by Alyssa Brewer

"When we started the program in August we were all new to the company and new to the rental program, so we weren't very adept at delivering the message of, you know, here's how the program works and the books have got to come back here. I think we're better prepared now," Southeast Bookstore manager Barbara Breedon said.

Some issues last semester included a lack of understanding with students and store employees in regards to how the books were to be returned and because of this many students ended up returning their books to Textbook Rental.

Textbook rental is located in Kent Library basement and books that aren't availble there can be bought or rented through Rent-A-Text in the bookstore.

The books were eventually sent back to the Southeast Bookstore. Another problem was determining whether a book had been rented or bought. This issue occurred mainly due to students either removing their stickers or not registering their textbooks through the email they were sent by Follet after their purchase.

"The returns were getting confused between us [Rent-A-Text] and the regular rental program, and that wasn't really a big deal because our books have a sticker on them that says they are rental with a return date so they knew they were our books and we figured out who they belonged to," Breedon said.

Breedon estimated that these problems led to about 60 students being billed for their books. When a book is "billed" it signifies that it has not been returned, therefore the student is charged the remaining balance. This is similar to the Textbook Rental service.

When a student rents a textbook through the Southeast Bookstore a large sticker is placed on the book's cover along with its due date. Another way in which students are notified of the books impending due date is via email. Breedon believes that during the fall semester students were sent up to four emails to make sure they were fully aware of when their books were due.

"The biggest way to resolve it [the issues] is education when students are renting," Breedon said.

There are 571 books available for purchase in the bookstore, 312 of which are available for rent. There are an additional 49 books that can be rented via an E-Reader. An estimated 2,200 books were rented out last semester alone.

"I was expecting to have to buy all of my books, but being able to rent them ended up being a lot cheaper," Southeast student junior Hailey Toombs said.

When students first open an account to rent textbooks through the Southeast Bookstore they must have a debit card or credit card in their name for collateral reasons. This is done because the store itself cannot charge a "billed" item to a student's Southeast account. After this is done and the purchase is complete the student will receive an email explaining how to register their textbooks online.

For more information about Rent-A-Text visit bkstr.com.