Just spitballing here, but the ISBN is issued to the publisher... thus, they're idiots & it's not their intellectual property.

They're just mad they can't rip people off for those books.

I'm confused. Aren't ISBN numbers issued by The Library of Congress and therefore, by law, in the public domain?

btw is it Coop of Co-op?

@MTigerV: Good question... is it more like a chicken coop? or a co-op? WTH?

I remember about a year ago at my college bookstore, they started an online system of buying books so that students could buy them earlier in the summer. I went on the website and to my surprise, there were on ISBN numbers! Every book I used had several older editions with the same name, and not only did they not list the book edition or the ISBN, it wouldn't let you search for anything else! The search engine was designed so that you could enter in your class information and it would find the required books and all you had to do was pick "used" or "new" and hit buy! Of course this was all under the guise of "user-friendly" but it was more like making sure students couldn't buy textbooks anywhere else without a headache!

I used to do this a couple of times when I was in college. Not so long ago, but the bookstore would include everything about the books required for a course on their website (title, author, etc.) but would fail mention a ISBN. After a little recon into the bookstore (husband was mortified) I'd scribble notes on my Palm and leave post-haste to go to Amazon or Half.com.

Every time I screwed the bookstore it made my heart skip a beat. If only the computer user fee could have been sidetracked so easily.

As the U.S. ISBN Agency, R R Bowker is the exclusive US source of publisher prefixes and accompanying ranges of ISBN numbers for eligible publishers. It provides information and advice on the uses of the ISBN System to publishers and the book trade and promotes the use of the Bookland EAN bar code format. In addition to their ISBN prefixes, publishers also register their titles for inclusion in the Bowker Books In Print databases.

From:[www.isbn.org]

You can't copyright facts. Sorry.

They aren't issued by the Library of Congress, there's actually an international organization that issues ISBN's. As a textbook buyer, that's one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

ISBN are purchased by the author or by publishing company in the name of the author. Unless they are the actual author of the books, I don't see how they can make that statement.

They must be pretty adamant because the Coop called the cops again a couple of days later.

[www.thecrimson.com] Coop Calls Cops On ISBN Copiers

Just take a picture of the front cover with a camera-phone. Then look up the title/author on amazon or half.com to get the ISBN. No sound, no suspicion, and doing this avoids the situation where if you mess up one number, you end up with a useless sequence of number.

Oh, no....I want the bookstore to win.

The ISBNs are their intellectual property because they bought the books?

So everything on a CD or DVD I buy becomes my intellectual property?

@TechnoDestructo: That would be quite the precedent to set.

By the way, its Coop.

If I were a professor or instructor, I would make sure to include the ISBN for the required book(s) on my syllabus ( I wonder if school administrators discourage such a practice).

It was originally Co-op, but at some point in Harvard's history, it became the Coop. There's a few stores on campus (one is in the Harvard Business School), but the one that keeps being dumb is probably the main one at the heart of Harvard Sq.

A protest should be organized where hundreds of students go in and they spend the time to copy down every ISBN.

I work for a publishing company and I think its really funny that the bookstore thinks the ISBN numbers are their own IP. If the bookstore publishes the titles themselves, the might have a chance, but for any title they just sell, their insane. The ISBN number we put on a book doesn't change for every bookstore the book is sold at.

Harvard calls it the "Coop." I should know, I've been asked to leave by their security. Apparently, they don't find humor from other Ivy League schools funny.

/Go Green.

To current textbook shoppers: I don't know if it still holds true, but when I was in school, you could save a ton by buying textbooks from amazon.co.uk, even after shipping. Search by ISBN and I believe you'll get the same book (with a sticker on the front saying it is the special European edition) for a lot cheaper.

@TechnoDestructo: Niiiice!

My ex-girlfriend went to Harvard. They pronounce it like "coop" (as in chicken coop) and not as "co-op".

I've visited there just prior to breaking up, and all I can say that it's just your overpriced run of the mill campus bookstore. Okay, perhaps it's bigger than some other campus bookstores, but otherwise nothing spectacular to see there.

I would say, just note the titles of the books (verify that it is used in your class) and find the ISBN online. I've done that last year and I'm still plan to do it for future years in college. Much faster, cheaper and convenient.

@TechnoDestructo: Oh man, that would be CRAZY!!

@letoofdune: Well, I mean, if I've learned anything about the Ivy League from my brother, it's that Harvard sucks and Princeton doesn't matter...

I would say, just note the titles of the books (verify that it is used in your class) and find the ISBN online.

@azntg: I've had trouble being sure I had the right version of the book just going by the title. A few books had other weirdness going on, not just nth editions of the same book.

Do you need a president to run a bookstore?

Harvard of all schools, hmmm how i n t r e s t i n g....Perhaps getting in there is now going to cost a gold bar with 2 gold coins to get the books , not just "We're here to help you learn, not rip you of."

It's sad, schools these days (once again that is a bit exaggerated.)

I will use Harvard's reasoning to stop the police officer from copying down my license plate number the next time I get pulled over!

I had a professor who purposely put ISBN numbers, edition numbers and even a screen cap of the textbook on his course syllabus because he knew that the bookstore was overcharging on everything. All of his students thought he was awesome because he defied "the man" and gave his students the chance to buy the textbook from half or amazon. He even printed off pages of the textbook for students to use until their books got in from the seller so they wouldn't miss reading.

coop coop a doop

Our campus bookstore had an online ordering system, without listed ISBNs (the N stands for number...), but with the title, author, and edition it's pretty easy to find cheaper textbooks online. Use Amazon to get the ISBN and check all the usual suspects (half.com, abebooks, etc).

It's ridiculous, but I'm sure the campus bookstore has the right to refuse service to anyone, or something like that. Makes me wonder how the Coop expects the student to buy books when they're banned from the only bookstore on campus! :)

i think they're more upset about the ISBN-to-course number relationship. What I mean is I dont think the store cares that you are aware that ISBN# 1234 (this is just an example) is for "the introduction to bullshit" text book. but that ISBN# 1234 is recquired reading for "Bullshit 101" class.

see what i'm getting at? the book lists? there might actually be some IP issues there. here in NYS i remember there was talk about passing a law to make state university book lists public records accessible under freedom of information laws.

basically, this is a classic campus bookstore fight. every college town i've seen has 2. one "official" on campus store and an off-campus store that tends to have cheaper prices but might be lacking some of the course codes. so you'd actually have to bring your syllabus with you rather than just go to the aisle labeled "econ" and then look for your specific course/section.

I was even worse at times by taking a book to the internet connected computer section to price check against common online sellers.

I went with the lowest cost, which at times, was the book store.

I spent 6 months on a project barcoding the inventory in religious bookstores overnights a few years ago and all this talk to ISBNs is giving me PTSD.

This is funny... I used to do it all the time in law school. I'd load up on all the books I needed and set up at a table and pull out my lap top. I would copy down all the ISBN numbers and then start shopping for them (at the store) on Half.com over the wireless. If half.com didn't have them then I'd buy them from the store. No one ever said anything. It would be crazy if they had.

Most professors would prefer to save their students money whenever possible, so if you want to order your textbooks early, try contacting the department or emailing the professor (the former suggestion is better if the class is very large; imagine 100 emails all asking for ISBN numbers!) Given the notorious lefty anti-establishment bias of academia, this latest kerfuffle may make some professors *eager* to thwart the Coop in this regard.

What a joke, IP, seriously!? I've never done that but I have photocopied in the bookstore, the few pages I need for my next assignment, from the textbook. I used to avoid buying them as long as possible as some classes rarely even used them. Some classes I didn't even need to copy pages. I doubt they'd like that very much either.

@lihtox: I wish... at my Uni, the profs often write their own "books" which are just poor quality photocopies of various crap they've typed up over the years and had bound. What should have cost $10 at most suddenly costs $75 for about 50 pages of photocopied notes, many which were printed on a dot matrix printer to give you an idea of hold old & crusty the copies were.

its a co-op. cooperatively run by a school and a company. I used to work loss prevention at Uconn's Co-Op and did the exact same thing this person did. Eventually I wised up and just studied from the books during breaks and after shifts. Graduated too, surprisingly

ok, so I guess it is the Coop at Harvard. Damn preppies have to be distinguished in any way possible I guess

@FLConsumer: I also had to buy my professor's books at a pretty high price at my U... and talking about "ISBN" I used to work part time at my Uni's library, you couldn't search a book by its ISBN, it had to be by reference given by the librarian or the author's surname, etc. In my opinion, it is a University thing.

Also, keep in mind that contrary to the title of this post, the Coop isn't the same thing as the Harvard Bookstore (or HBS, which in turn, shares the same abbr. as the Business School). While the latter's site only pertains to Harvard in general (as in Harvard Square) and, in my opinion, is a much much better store (for used books, manuscripts, etc etc; it's like the Strand equivalent of Cambridge).

The Coop (www.thecoop.com), on the other hand, is the one affiliated with the school, and has been featured in the Crimson (and likely to be satired in the Lampoon). Semantical issue, I know, but just thought I'd clarify...

I've heard from my neighbor (his son goes to Harvey Mudd or MIT or Caltech or something like that) that on many campuses there is a movement underway to buy, scan, and share textbooks on an ENORMOUS scale. With BitTorrent and scanners / digital cameras (not to mention closed university LANS and intranets), the high-priced textbook monopoly of campus bookstores is on shakey ground.

Mind you I'm not condoning it or slamming it, but once he told me it sounded so obvious, yet I hadn't even thought of it before.

Anyone wanna scan my 20 year engineering textbooks? First let me blow off the dust :-)

@FLConsumer: The exact situation you describe ($75 for a 50-page photocopy of the professor's own notes) is unconscionable. If the photocopies contained copyrighted material from elsewhere, then the cost may be mandated by the copyright owners. You might approach the departments' chairs and demand to know why they are charging so much.

It is perfectly reasonable for a professor to require his own book (he probably wrote the darn thing so that he could teach the class just the way he wants to). If that book is published, the price is set by the publisher, and the professor rarely gets very much of the royalties. If the book is still in manuscript form, it should be sold at cost to the students.

I've never seen this phenomenon myself; maybe I lead a sheltered life? :) If you like you may emend my statement to read "If I taught at Harvard"... I *am* a professor, though not at Harvard... "I would make a point of publishing the ISBNs of my required textbooks, SPECIFICALLY to screw with the bookstore."

I don't know about Harvard, but hundreds of college bookstores are now run by Barnes & Noble. B & N has a special college website ([www.bkstore.com]) where you select your college, your course, and your section, and then a rather obfuscated list of books for the course appears. (The prices are VERY high if you order directly from the B&N college bookstore.) However, they don't give out the ISBN numbers for the books. Sometimes you can figure out what the books actually titles are by looking at the abbreviated titles and the authors, and them order them from other sources. Other times, you have to go to the college bookstore and look on the shelf and actually look at the book and get the ISBN.

Easiest way to avoid the hassle is to use a cell phone camera in the book store and just photograph the ISBN labels of the books that you need.

@lihtox: I don't believe anything was copyrighted, but it certainly was most unprofessional. The department chair sidestepped the issue saying professors are free to choose whatever materials they find appropriate to teach the course. I've seen it happen far too often in my courses. $200+ for a chemistry text is a sham, especially given that the prof DID get in trouble for plagiarism and did have to issue a "revised" edition to avoid a major copyright suit. Still... if any student were to submit anything which was plagiarized or worse, published something which was plagiarized, they would be kicked out of the school. Instead, this prof has "Distinguished Emeritus" status.

Conversely, I have had two classes where the professor wrote a decent book and made it available at low cost (<$20) or available as a .PDF file. I've also had two professors who said there weren't books available which adequately covered the material, so they just gave us their presentations and occasional photocopies of things they found along the way.

/as a side note, why do colleges have it backwards? I realize professors bring in money through research grants & such, but students are the ultimate consumers for these institutions, and at least at my Uni, are treated like dirt.

Reprehensible rent seeking behavior on the part of these college bookstores, of course. Tens of thousands a year for tuition, then they try to force you to overpay for books? disgusting.

But there is one aspect of their claim that may not be completely wrong. Intellectual property is usually considered to include trade secrets. Trade secrets can be anything whose secrecy gives you a competitive advantage.

In this case, the bookstores profit from keeping the ISBN numbers secret, hence the colorable IP claim.

Our campus bookstore is Barnes & Noble. I don't know what's different, but they do post the ISBNs for all books. Perhaps our campus mandated that information be available.

Our campus is in the process of being sued for witholding $500 of student aid as a courtesy to spend at the bookstore. The independent bookstore in town is not happy with this.

A course I teach switched books to save the students money (it was around $20 cheaper. The independent bookstore marked the new text down.

We're talking Harvard here, right down the street from MIT. Here's an idea for some MIT techie to make a little money. Build a simple hand-held barcode scanner that Harvard students can rent and take into the Coop with them. They scan the barcodes of the books they're interested then take the scanner back to the MIT student who prints out the ISBN's for them.

I know you can buy RFID readers that'll plug into Palm Pilots and other sorts of PDA's. It wouldn't surprise me if there were similar attachments available to scan barcodes. Some kid could make a small fortune renting such a device to students as needed. Make it something that can strap to the wrist with the reader in the palm and it'd be virtually impossible for somebody in the store to see what they're doing.

@BrianH: Just yesterday I got an email from a friend of mine at "Harvey Mudd or MIT or Caltech or something like that" about a DVD size daa distributed through bit torrent about a vast number of high end / high level physics books.

That is wrong, so I did not get it... Just saying that for sure that type of sharing is out there. And it could be a strong educational aid in some situations.

Putch's comment is correct. The issue is not about owning the ISBN #'s. Harvard doesn't aggregate a list of ISBN's and courses. The Coop calls each individual professor and department to get a list of the books they intend to use. They then organize the books by class for the convenience of students.The information is available but takes a lot of work to put together and that work is what the Coop seeks to protect.