Innovation at the BSC Bookstore resulted in $51,500 in textbook savings for students in select classes during the fall semester. The textbook rental program gave students in three general education classes and the Mechanical Maintenance Technology program the option to rent textbooks at less than half to one-third the purchase price.

Bookstore manager Tanya Fuher said BSC's Bookstore is the only college store in the state that has the rental program. She worked with English, speech, and math faculty last spring to choose books that would be used for at least three years. Mechanical Maintenance became part of the rental plan in January to help the new program's first students. The first semester of the program required 18 books at a retail cost of $1,150. Rental books provided a savings of $610.28 per student. Second semester required another seven books totaling $424. Second semester students saved $214.82. Total savings for Mechanical Maintenance students over two semesters was $27,418.

Fuher said she estimates that one of every four students who come into the bookstore asks what books the bookstore is renting.

"Our rental program has been very positive all the way around," she said. "We had one student from a local high school who chose BSC because her counselor told her about our book rental program and what a great bargain it is."

During fall semester, rentals of books for elementary statistics, speech, and two books for English 110 yielded a $35,080 savings for 766 students.

This spring, the bookstore will add human biology and Western civilization to the rental program. Based on fall sales of those books, the rental program could potentially save students $20,000. Fuher has applied for an Innovation Award from the National Association of College Stores.