The Globe covers the simmering battle between CrimsonReading.org and the Harvard Coop.
For the students, this is a fight about the cheapest access to information.
"We're not out to be at war with the Coop," said Jon Staff, director of crimsonreading.org, who passed out fliers advertising the site outside the Coop yesterday. "It's sad that students have to choose which classes they take based on the overall cost of the textbooks."
And for the Coop, it's about the value of information that it works to compile.
Coop president Jeremiah Murphy said the store's reading list is proprietary information. The staff spends considerable time compiling the list, collecting the names of books required by professors and sorting books by course, he said. "The issue is, why should we give it out to anybody, particularly the competitors?" Murphy said.
It's really a classic fight of the Internet era, in which information wants to be cheap and old monopolies dig in their heels to try to maintain profit levels. Sorry, Coop—right or wrong, you know how this is going to go. Cut your prices or die.....
Have
Shots in the Dark
delivered to your favorite newsreader. Click the orange link above to subscribe or use this link.
Your privacy is ensured. We never sell, disclose, or trade contact information.
02138 is an independent magazine and is not affiliated with Harvard University. Please note that 02138 is available to the general public by subscription only, but is not automatically mailed to all Harvard alumni.
by