[drags]

It doesn't fix the "custom book" problem, but if you're an instructor you should encourage your institution/bookstore to mandate price comparison for textbooks.

We run white-labelled price comparison sites for about 350 campuses, and the stores at those campuses end up winning 80% of the sales. The need to look competitive against online retailers is a really powerful incentive for the local store to do everything possible to get lower-cost options on the shelves (and we do things like help them get more used/rental books, lower prices strategically, etc).

Here's our website, shoot me an email if you're curious: http://www.verbasoftware.com

[christiangenco]

I love verbasoft! It's like a university-sponsored price comparison site. I believe the model is that instead of having a central university bookstore that sells the canon copy, students are directed to a site like http://davis.verbacompare.com/ that shows textbook prices on Amazon, Albris, Half.com, and a few others.

For students at universities that haven't yet partnered with verbasoft, I made a textbook search engine in college that does essentially the same thing: http://textbooksplease.com