2008 Woodie Awards
'Perfidy' at Annex
Store manager poses as parent to intercept reading list
William McGuinness, Collegian Staff
Issue date: 9/3/08 Section: News
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According to downtown bookstore owners, the rush to sell student textbooks is marked with deceit and business ethics that have corroded too greatly.
Ken Kahler, the director of the University of Massachusetts bookstore, was caught posing as a parent of a UMass student inquiring which textbook professor Suzanne Daly required for her class. In the e-mail, he said his daughter was enrolled in the class. He asked for the title, author and ISBN number of the text.
The e-mail was from a Kahler account not affiliated with the University, though he has one. Daly grew suspicious after replying to the message and asked Kahler's daughter's name. He did not reply.
Daly immediately informed Amherst Books co-owner Nat Herold via e-mail.
"I visited the Textbook Annex, and on the shelf was a card with my name and textbook on it, stating that the book was on order," she wrote in her correspondence. "When I demanded an explanation from the textbook manager, her assistant first told me that they had ordered the book in response to student requests."
She told the employee this was impossible since the students did not yet have that information.
"When I confronted him, he admitted that he did not have a daughter in my class and that he had deliberately deceived me in effect to steal our orders from the bookstores with whom we had placed them," Daly said.
Daly, a member of the English department, teaches a 300-person world literature class that requires students to buy "Concert of Voices," an anthology that retails at $44.95. At each semester's end, Daly polls her class asking at which store students prefer to shop. She said Amherst Books and Food for Thought Books are perennial front-runners.
In Amherst, textbooks are big business, and professors take the decision on who carries theirs very seriously.
Comparative Literature professor David Lenson's CompLit 131 class requires 150 students to purchase nine paperback books averaging $15 each. While Amherst Books is sent his list of books exclusively, students still have the opportunity to buy them used, on-line or from other stores.
But Herold said all is not fair in textbook sales - that an ugly version of competition has, over the years, morphed into border-line, industrial espionage.
In an e-mail to the professors who do business with him, Herold said the bookseller Follett has a long history of using devious and unscrupulous means to discover what professors have ordered at the three independent bookstores in town so that they can carry the course list and scoop sales.
Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 10
Ed Cutting
posted 9/03/08 @ 1:21 PM EST
This is a public records issue. The Annex (and everyone else) has a LEGAL RIGHT to the professor's book listing and should she give it to one vendor and not all, that sounds a whole lot like a violation of the state ethics law. (Continued…)
Book Guy
posted 9/04/08 @ 8:31 PM EST
I'm not the biggest fan of Follett, but the on campus bookstore should get a copy of every book request and so should all of the off-campus stores.
How would you feel if you were a student on financial aid only available through the campus bookstore? How would you feel if your parents gave you 1 check to get your books. (Continued…)
Cora
posted 9/04/08 @ 11:55 PM EST
Book Guy: if that's Follett's argument, then they should make that argument publicly, and talk to everyone involved, not assume false identities on the internet to get booklists. (Continued…)
Lukas R. Matthews
posted 9/05/08 @ 2:13 PM EST
Wow, what an idiot.
Tiffany Nelson
posted 9/05/08 @ 2:42 PM EST
This article makes EVERYONE INVOLVED sound like a bunch of idiots. Why can't we just give our book information to all the stores in town? This only hurts the students. (Continued…)
Textbooks
posted 9/05/08 @ 3:35 PM EST
Its soo dumb to even buy books from these expensive textbook stores...just buy them online...amazon..or half.com Its always cheaper there..even with shipping. (Continued…)
Giselle
posted 9/10/08 @ 6:24 PM EST
Why doesn't Ken Kahler assume the role of a proactive Store Director? Rather than having to lie, he could actually establish good relations and rapport with his referral sources - LIKE THE FACULTY. (Continued…)
fnurklur
posted 10/14/08 @ 7:34 PM EST
Wow, this is a mess. Hope it all get sorted out QUICKLY
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