VCU Textbook Buybacks

By Chris Davis
May 1, 2009

RICHMOND, Va. – Most college textbooks share two characteristics: They are expensive, and they are virtually useless after the semester’s end. Fortunately for VCU students, there are competing outlets for the resale of old textbooks.

VCU’s bookstore, which is now supplied by Barnes & Noble, Inc., and the Virginia Book Company (VBC), an independently owned retailer, operate stores within two blocks of one another. But when the semester nears its end, each sets up tents on campus to make the buyback process easier on students.

Though both stores do buy books throughout the entire semester, the tents are only set up to dissipate the throngs of students waiting to lighten their loads after finals. Which store can give better deals, though, seems to be a toss-up.

Both companies claim to offer students up to half of what he or she paid for the book, but each has a different way of calculating exact values of used books.

“What we do,” said Michael P’Pool, 37, operations manager of VBC, “is price popular books a little lower so we can buy back more of them. What they (VCU) do is buy back a certain number at a certain price, then don’t buy any more.”

Since VBC is privately owned, P’Pool went on, they are able to sell the used books to a wide variety of wholesalers instead of the short list approved by Barnes & Noble. So, while VCU might be able to give slightly more for a book, VBC is more likely to buy the book in the first place.

“I compared prices, and the VCU bookstore was $3 higher,” said Paul Smither, 19, who received $68 for his old chemistry book.

Brian McCormick, on the other hand, received $30 at a VBC tent for four books that the VCU bookstore wouldn’t buy back. McCormick, 20, a political science and Spanish double major, burned his old edition textbooks at the end of last semester, but decided to make a little money this time. However, he could not suppress his frustration with the cost of books.

“It’s a scam by the publishing companies,” said McCormick, referencing the tendency of book publishers to print new editions every year, making old editions worthless.

Margaret Ludlow, 18, agrees. “It’s a rip off. I paid $100 for a book and got $10 back. It’s better to get some money back than none, though.”

Perhaps the biggest difference between VBC and the VCU bookstore is how they deal with old editions and other books deemed to have no buyback value.

“We work with the SGA,” P’Pool said. “We give them the old editions that students bring in and they send them to schools in Africa and Asia.”

As for VCU’s bookstore, “We encourage students to recycle them,” said Melissa Shorey, an employee operating one of the bookstore’s tents.

CBS 6 Content

*The following articles represent some of my Web work at my internship with WTVR Richmond over the summer. Photos and video © CBS 6 WTVR Richmond*

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The No BS! Brass Band: Richmond's New 'Folk'

By Chris Davis

RICHMOND, Va. - The 2010 Richmond Folk Festival blew through town in early October, bringing with it music from around the world. But one of the festival's most animated acts is from right here in the River City.

It's called the No BS! Brass Band.

But it's not a very traditional brass band sound. It's more of "a very animalistic, strong, explosive, brass, rock 'n' roll, funky, hip hop, emotional sound," said trombonist and co-founder of No BS! Reggie Pace.

It's not just the sound that has crowds - and band members, for that matter - on their feet, though. The band's on-stage antics and dance moves, said Reggie Chapman, get people more involved.

"Some people definitely hear with their eyes," he said. Chapman plays bass trombone with the group and sings on a few songs. He said the band's presence when they perform brings audiences closer to the music.

"People need that," said Chapman. "They need to feel up close. It needs to feel personal."

 Formed in 2006 by Pace and drummer Lance Koehler when the latter moved here from the Big Easy, the band quickly took on a different sound from the one envisioned by the founders.

"Our original idea," said Koehler, "was to cross New Orleans stuff...with a more traditional samba line."

But a city full of Virginia Commonwealth University-trained musicians has helped shape the music across three albums over the last four years.

"The songs we started writing as a band were totally funk Richmond and not at all what we started off to do," Koehler said. "And we just went from there...just let it happen natural."

The next step for the ten-member brass band is to get out of town a little more. The group has been up and down the East Coast over the years, and now it's time to branch out.

"We're definitely...trying to push outward and carry the Richmond sound" to the rest of the country, said Koehler.

"Maybe getting to Europe and hitting those areas," Pace added. "Just - what's the word - spreading the joy, spreading the gospel of the band."

But no matter where the group goes, the players are going to keep doing the same things.

"Music is movement," Chapman said. "That's what we're doing. We're just moving and blowing into tubes and beautiful stuff comes out. And on the other side, people decide to move as well."

ACLU Takes College Alcohol Ad Ban to Supreme Court

By Chris Davis

RICHMOND, Va. -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia last month asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a case involving a ban on alcohol ads in Virginia college newspapers.

The ban has been in place for more than a half-century, but for the last four years, the Virginia ACLU has been fighting on behalf of Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia for their right to print the ads.

The ACLU took up the case in 2006, and now, after a win in U.S. District Court and a loss in the state's appeal, the schools are looking to the Supreme Court for a decision.

"The Supreme Court has said that government may not restrict commercial speech,"  Rebecca Glenberg said, legal director of the Virginia ACLU and lead attorney in the case, "unless the restriction is substantially and directly related to a substantial government interest."

According to the state, the restriction helps cut down on underage drinking and binge drinking on college campuses. But Glenberg said there's little evidence to support such a claim.

"The regulation does nothing to advance the government's interest," she said.

Ross Lawrence, editor-in-chief of the Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper at UVA, agreed with Glenberg that college publications are being unfairly targeted.

"When you really look at the market for us," Lawrence said, "it's not very different from what a lot of publications are doing."

Magazines like Sports Illustrated, Lawrence went on, draw bigger underage audiences than the Cavalier Daily.

Considering the large population of undergraduate upperclassmen, graduate students, faculty, staff, and community members, Lawrence said, "most people who read [the Cavalier Daily] are over 21 years of age."

The ad ban discriminates against college papers by not allowing them to print the same ads as other publications that reach the same audiences, Lawrence argued.

And that, said Glenberg, makes it a fundamental civil rights issue.

"We just think it's very important that student newspapers' First Amendment rights are respected to the same degree as other newspapers," she said.

But for now, the ban on alcohol ads in college newspapers is still on the books.

The Supreme Court will decide whether or not it will take the case for review probably within the next few months. If they do take it, justices should have a decision within the year.