Textbook orders

Is the annual farce of students trekking hopefully to bookshops to buy their set texts, without success, to be repeated again this year?

It is a farce only because of the near-total mismanagement by university departments of the book-ordering system. In the past, it has been fashionable to blame "monopolistic" bookshops for the problems students face in obtaining the relevant texts. This is incorrect.

Last year, one city shop was completely unaware of the existence of one of the courses being offered by a University Department. This was not the shop's fault—the Department had simply not notified them.

In another case, bookshops were advised in time to buy certain books, for an estimated number of students, for a particular course. Then, in late February, the requirements were changed. Not one book in the first list was a set text on the new list. Is it any wonder that the bookshops have to charge the high prices they do, simply in order to protect themselves from the incompetence of the academic authorities?