Coop Warms to CrimsonReading

After a tense fall shopping period that featured a standoff involving HUPD, the relationship between CrimsonReading.org and The Harvard Coop seems to have warmed in time for the spring semester.

Employees of the textbook-price-comparison Web site are continuing to copy the International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) of texts for Harvard courses, and they say that unlike last semester, the Coop has turned a blind eye to the practice.

“We told the Coop we’re not interested in a fight like last semester,” said CrimsonReading co-founder and Undergraduate Council (UC) representative Thomas D. Hadfield ’08 yesterday. “We haven’t been asked to leave yet.”

Last September, Coop staff members called the police when a few students copying down ISBNs repeatedly refused to leave the book store. The police allowed the students to continue copying the numbers, which CrimsonReading uses to compare textbook prices with online retailers such as Amazon.com and Half.com.

Hadfield said he and CrimsonReading director Jon T. Staff V ’10, who is also a UC representative, met with two Coop officials—President Jerry P. Murphy ’73 and Corporate General Manager Allan E. Powell—on Monday.

Powell said yesterday that the Coop would tolerate the practice of copying ISBNs if it did not disrupt other patrons.

“We know that this is going to happen. We’re not going to invite you in to do it,” Powell said, adding that the Coop would not prevent CrimsonReading employees from “coming in when it’s not busy and not bothering anyone about it.”

The parties have reached the detente even though CrimsonReading has improved and expanded their ISBN-copying techniques. The company has purchased a bar code scanner in order to compile ISBNs faster than they could by hand.

Hadfield said CrimsonReading employees used the scanner for two days this semester and gathered about 20 percent of the ISBNs for this semester’s courses.

But Staff said that even the scanner has limitations—it cannot read ISBNs on used books because the used sticker covers up the original identification number, for instance.

CrimsonReading is also using other methods to collect the numbers, including submissions from students and software written by UC representative Michael R. Ragalie ’09 that automatically scans course syllabi for ISBNs, according to Hadfield.

CrimsonReading has expanded its operations in other ways as well. Its redesigned Web site features a new course shopping tool that includes enrollment statistics and CUE Guide results.

—Staff writer Chelsea L. Shover can be reached at clshover@fas.harvard.edu.