Shops pick up slack in coursepack distribution

With one of the campus's major coursepack suppliers now out of business, other stores are picking up the slack and professors are putting course materials online to accommodate students.

Michigan Document Service closed this past year after it was sued by the American Association of Publishers for copyright infringement in 1992 and subsequently was denied an appeal to the Supreme Court in 1997.

The courts' decisions forced the firm to alter its copying procedures and lose a majority of its earnings, which made continued business unprofitable.

As a result of the store's closing, other campus printing shops are working hard to manage the influx of business.

"We've been working 24-hour shifts for the past two weeks," said Kathy Eshelman, president and founder of Grade 'A' Publishing.

MARGARET MYERS/Daily Music School sophomores, from left, Daniel Kahn, Aaron Sherry and Marc Kamler, waited for more than 20 minutes to buy their coursepacks at Accu-Copy last Wednesday.

Lines outside printing stores last week were about 20-people long at peak times, but students said they haven't noticed a marked increase in waiting times.

"It would just be easier if they sold them in the regular bookstores, so that you could get everything in the same place." said LSA first-year student Lindsay Allen.

Economics Prof. Frank Thompson, who said he believes strongly in Michigan Document Service's no-royalty policy, called MDS's closing, "a very serious blow to academic freedom because it restricts the availability of course material to students."

Thompson has foregone other copying services, and now refers his students to course materials that can be found on the Web and on reserve at the Shapiro Undergraduate Library.

He chose to take these actions because of "impossible barriers, especially financial ones, caused by exorbitant royalties" incurred by students who have to buy coursepacks.

Most traditional coursepacks cost between $20-$30, although prices can range anywhere between $1-$100.

Eshelman said publishing companies charge royalty fees of 6 to 7 cents per copy. The binding fee and the copying fee account for the rest of the cost of coursepacks.

Professors, however, can lower these prices by sending in their coursepack orders to stores that lower the price for early submission of coursepacks.

The University provides two services by which professors may distribute material to students through the University Libraries system - the Electronic Reserve and the University Reserve.

"The Electronic Reserve allows students to pick and choose information to pay for, rather than standard coursepacks," said Ann Sprunger, a librarian at the Undergraduate library.

The University Reserve can hold coursepacks that are exactly the same as those students are buying at the print shops.

The library will place one unofficial coursepack on reserve for one semester for professors. Official coursepacks, those the professor has had bound and has paid royalties for through a local print shop, are kept on reserve as long as a professor desires.

Items uploaded to the electronic reserve are limited to any instructor-owned materials, such as lecture notes and sample exams, single articles and selected chapters from books.

Physics associate Prof. August Evrard said the electronic and library reserves "just make too much sense."

He said that by going online, "students don't lose papers or have to carry around more textbooks. Changes are also easier to make. It's just more flexible."

"I use it (the Web) because I though it would help my students learn," said psychology Prof. James Hilton. "I put up the notes on the lecture I'm going to give, and I can alter them at any time. The outlines of the lectures with definitions are up, and if I know my students have the information, I can go faster."

LSA first-year student Orlando Stegall said he believes more use of the Web for course materials would save students a lot of money.

When coupled with textbook costs, high coursepack prices irritate some students.

"I think anything over $20 is a little excessive," said LSA first-year student Amanda Atecherton, while waiting in line to purchase coursepacks at Dollar Bill Copying.

09-15-98