Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters

American Association of University Professors - American Federation of Teachers

Resolution passed by the Executive Council of Rutgers Council of AAUP-AFT Chapters on September 21, 2005:

Whereas professors are regularly sent complimentary review copies of textbooks;

Whereas professors are regularly approached to sell these textbooks;

Whereas when a publisher sets the price of a new textbook some of the factors that are considered are:

          1. Cost of developing and producing the book. There are many costs beyond the obvious ones such as the paper, printing, and binding, not all of them necessary. Publishers are far from blameless for the high costs of textbooks.

          2. Anticipated profit (possibly excessive)

          3. Anticipated sales. The more sales anticipated, the lower the price. Anything that lowers sales of new books raises the price. When students buy resold faculty review copies, sales by the publisher are lowered;

Whereas the price increases that result from this situation are nontrivial, sometimes approaching 10%.

Whereas the practice of selling the complimentary review copies that publishers send us is unethical and indirectly raises the price of textbooks for our students;

Be it resolved that Rutgers Council of AAUP Chapters, AAUP-AFT does not support this activity. Instead, faculty members should arrange to donate these books to the library or other agency that will send them to developing countries.