On November 19, the Minister of Finance announced a proposed voluntary code of conduct governing debit and credit cards. It’s now open for public consultations. More information, including the press release and background information, is below. The focus of the agreement includes:
Ensuring that merchants are fully aware of the costs associated with accepting credit and debit card payments.
Providing merchants with increased pricing flexibility to encourage consumers to choose the lowest-cost payment option.
Allowing merchants to freely choose which payment options they will accept.
As you probably are aware, changes in the debit/credit card industry have created a situation where merchants pay a variety of different fees on the cards, and often the only time that they actually find out is when they get the bill in the mail. Criticism of this from retail groups has helped gestate this.
CSC will be making a submission in thispublic consultation process. Members will beadvised when the document is available on the CSC site.
As if bookselling on campus isn't chilling enough in these times of dramatic change where everybody is wondering about the state of publishing, the viability of the printed textbook and emerging digital technologies . . .
But this time, the chills are fiction -- imaginitive tales born from the dark corners of campuses across Canada.
The time, it's a general interest book designed exclusively by campus bookstores and launching at four of them.
Campus Chills, premiering October 22, 2009 (just in time for Halloween) is an anthology of thirteen original tales of terror set on Canadian campuses and written by authors from across the country. The bookstores at University of Alberta, McMaster Univeristy and University of Waterloo joined forces to solicit fiction from some of the finest Canadian speculative fiction writers and have produced the trade paperback book on their Espresso Book Machines.
Including fiction by Kelley Armstrong, Julie E. Czerneda, Kimberly Foottit, James Alan Gardner, Sephera Giron, Michael Kelly, Nancy Kilpatrick, Susie Moloney, Douglas Smith, Brit Trogen, Edo van Belkom, Steve Vernon and Carol Weekes, this original anthology is edited by Mark Leslie and introduced by Robert J. Sawyer.
The book is being launched at four campus stores on the same day.
On October 22, 2009, author Steve Vernon will appear at a lunchtime reading and book signing at Dalhousie University bookstore in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Then, mid afternoon in Edmonton, Alberta, Susie Moloney and Brit Trogen will appear at the University of Alberta bookstore for a reading, signing and Halloween-themed event. Beginning at 7PM in Hamilton, Ontario, Titles Bookstore McMaster University will host Kelley Armstrong, Kimberly Foottit, Sephera Giron, Michael Kelly and Edo van Belkom for a reading and signing combined with free guided ghost walks of the McMaster campus. And at 9 PM in Waterloo, Ontario, Waterloo Alumni authors Julie E. Czerneda, James Alan Gardner and Douglas Smith will meet registrants at the bookstore then lead them to a special secret location to haunt them with readings of their work.
11 of the 13 contributors will be at four locations in three provinces for this exclusive launch, which is something that has never been done before. What has also never been done before is the collaborative effort between 3 campus bookstores to produce a professionally authored general interest/trade book.
You can't get this book at WalMart, or Costco or Amazon.
If you want to get this book in time for Halloween, you need to get to your local campus bookstore to get one. The book is currently available at five campus bookstores -- the ones mentioned above as well as the Algonquin College bookstore in Ottawa (and the list continues to grow -- check out the following website for updates and links on where to buy it -- Where to buy Campus Chills)
Campus bookstores who are interested in carrying the book can order it from University of Alberta, McMaster or Waterloo bookstores. Check out the Campus Chills website for more information.
For a peek, check out the video book trailer . . .
An important note, though, is that while the CourseSmart etextbook version is typically cheaper than the hard copy textbook, the "e" version expires after 180 days.
On the plus side, there's something wonderful about the instant nature of acquiring the etextbook in this manner.
But on the flip side, there's something unsettling about the almost "instant" nature of losing the etextbook purchased in this manner.
To ensure students get the most residual value (ie, ability to hold onto for later use, or re-sell) for their textbooks, it would be wise to remind them of the existence of the expiration date so that they can make an informed decision when deciding which textbook version to buy.
Are you thinking about starting up a blog for your store (or perhaps improving an existing one that you have let go "stale"?)
Check out video interview with Dustin at McNally Jackson in NY talking about their The Common Reader blog. Three simple questions -- three simple answers.
The POV that this interview and blog takes is that of a general interest bookstore. Thus, it's a useful tool for those campus stores with a general/trade book section.
But you might also consider how you might adapt the same principles here into your campus store blog to incorporate textbooks, giftware, computer accessories, etc. IE, "Staff picks" work in most product categories, not just general books.
If your campus store offers USED TEXTBOOKS to help save students money on the continually rising cost of textbooks, you'll likely get a huge kick out of the following video.
Yes, the video is a bit longer than it needs to be to make the point, but it does make an interesting point.
While ebooks have a huge advantage in being able to allow you to carry a huge volume of books in a single portable device (either a dedicated reader or your smart phone of choice), the residual value and the consumer's ability to loan, re-sell or give-away the hard copy "dead tree" version of the book still has some distinct advantages.
Symtext is a start-up company based in Toronto that is promoting Liquid Textbooks.
This is how they describe Liquid Textbooks to academics (excerpt from their site):
By comparison, Symtext enables you to teach better courses by assembling best of breed digital content from multiple publishers into dynamic, continuously evolving "Liquid Textbooks", thus ensuring the highest possible quality content for students. Unlike traditional materials, Liquid Textbooks include not only traditional content like chapters, cases and articles, but podcasts, videos, presentations - curated Flickr feeds - data files, and many other types of digital files. (We'll clear the rights and do the work to make sure your students gain access to your Liquid Textbook through your School's Learning Management System.)
Web 2.0 approaches to digital content, such as this effort, may eclipse the focus on static digital textbooks (i.e. digital versions of hardcopy textbooks) sooner rather than later.
Digital initiatives, whether applications or hardware, are emerging and evolving at a increasingly quicker pace. Where it is going to end up, nobody knows at this point. But we can't wait until the dust settles. Campus stores need to quicken efforts to adapt to the digital future, and a changing role within that future.
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