“Overall, I admire the legislative attempt, but I’m skeptical that it will have much of an impact,” he said. “The law may produce an interesting competitive effect where teachers actually compete for students by assigning lower price textbooks.”
Besides requiring colleges to publicly list the price of textbooks, the law also mandates that publishers detail changes between successive revisions to textbooks.
—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
CORRECTION: September 8, 2010
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this Sept. 8 news article was originally titled "Law Requires Coop to Post Prices Online." In fact, the new law requires Harvard University, not the Coop, to post the prices and ISBNs of course books online.