The University of Iowa must comply with federal legislation that requires textbook information for a course to be available through the institution’s course schedule before students register for the semester that the books will be used.

Students begin registering for Fall 2019 on Monday, April 8. Please complete your textbook orders now for fall.

The purpose of this legislation is “to ensure that students have access to affordable course materials by decreasing costs to students and enhancing transparency and disclosure with respect to the selection, purchase, sale, and use of course materials.”*

Why is it important to order books so early?

The book-buying business is aggressive, and the earliest buyers are able to procure used textbooks; those who start looking later, often find few used books to buy. If instructors order their books during the summer, for example, it is too late for the bookstores to find the best deals for students. Instead, they must buy and sell the books at full price.

• One of the best ways to save students money is to order books for a future semester during the current semester.
• This allows bookstores to buy back used books and to resell them at a steep discount.
• Booksellers will not buy back books unless they know instructors are using them again, in part because there is very little space in which to store used texts.
• Ordering books early also allows the bookstores to find used texts outside of Iowa City through distributors and other sources.
• Instructors might also want to consider using Open Educational Resources (OER); grants are available for instructors through the UI Libraries. The deadline is April 26, 2019; see this page for more information: https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/openhawks/
• Many instructors also choose texts where a rental option is available.

Please help our students by ordering your Fall 2019 textbooks now. We appreciate your thoughtfulness.

*Visit section the HEO Act for more details concerning the legislation (scroll to down to this tag [Page 122 STAT. 3107].