[Infowarrior] - Harvard Coop Discourages Notetaking in Bookstore

[Richard Forno]

 Coop Discourages Notetaking in Bookstore

Published On Wednesday, September 19, 2007  2:53 AM
By GABRIEL J. DALY
Crimson Staff Writer

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=519564

Taking notes in class may be encouraged, but apparently it can get you
kicked out of the Coop.

Jarret A. Zafran ¹09 said he was asked to leave the Coop after writing down
the prices of six books required for a junior Social Studies tutorial he
hopes to take.

³I¹m a junior and every semester I do the same thing. I go and look up the
author and the cost and order the ones that are cheaper online and then go
back to the Coop to get the rest,² Zafran said.

³I¹m not a rival bookstore, I¹m a student with an I.D.,² he added.

Coop President Jerry P. Murphy ¹73 said that while there is no Coop policy
against individual students copying down book information, ³we discourage
people who are taking down a lot of notes.²

The apparent new policy could be a response to efforts by
Crimsonreading.org‹an online database that allows students to find the books
they need for each course at discounted prices from several online
booksellers‹from writing down the ISBN identification numbers for books at
the Coop and then using that information for their Web site.

Murphy said the Coop considers that information the Coop¹s intellectual
property.

Crimson Reading disagrees. ³We don¹t think the Coop owns copyright on this
information that should be available to students,² said Tom D. Hadfield ¹08,
a co-creator of the site.

According to UC President Ryan A. Petersen ¹08, discussions with an
intellectual property lawyer have confirmed Crimson Reading¹s position.

ISBN data is similar to phone book listings, which are not protected by
intellectual property law, Petersen added. Every book title has a unique
ISBN number, short for ³international standard book number.²

The alleged new rule is just the latest hurdle for Crimsonreading.org.

During a meeting of the Committee on Undergraduate Education last March,
Petersen proposed creating a centralized database of ISBN numbers for all
courses, streamlining the process for professors and cutting the costs for
the Coop. The proposal, which could have also made it easier for Crimson
Reading to collect information, was nixed.

³There¹s a very lucrative and sensitive relationship between the Coop and
University Hall that is stopping students from saving money on textbooks,²
Hadfield said.

Zafran, after his altercation with the Coop, does not feel much sympathy for
the store. ³If they want to get their revenue up they should slash their
prices,² Zafran said. ³I think if anything, this policy will have the
reverse effect because if students aren¹t allowed to comparison-shop,
students will just get all their books online,² he said.

‹Staff writer Gabriel J. Daly can be reached at gdaly at fas.harvard.edu.