Dalhousie Bookstore Textbook Buyback Program Research Project

Abstract

The Dalhousie University Bookstore’s Buyback program provides students with the opportunity to sell their previously owned textbooks back to the bookstore. This offers students the opportunity to receive money for their textbooks while lowering their ecological footprint. Through participating in the buyback program, students are ensuring the reuse of books and reducing the amount of books the bookstore has to order for the following semester. The buyback program in turn will, thus, lower the demand for brand new books and the production of brand new books.

The buyback program relies on both student and professor participation and this is an area the bookstore is seeking to improve upon. This project conducted a survey to determine student and professor participation within Dalhousie University Bookstore’s Textbook Buyback program to ascertain how to increase and improve professor participation within the program. Results of the data demonstrate that students are primarily concerned with the cost of textbooks rather than environmental impact. The results also revealed that professors are unaware of the role they play in the program. Therefore it is recommended that further studies be executed in order to determine how to create incentives to increase student and professor participation within the buyback program.