/ NEWS / MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
CAMPUS
Bookstore offers online pricing tool for textbooks
BY STEPHEN GRAY sgray@kansan.com
Although many students have already purchased textbooks for this semester, it is not too late to find them for a bargain.
Spending hundreds of dollars on books has even become quite common for students like Gianni Santucci, whose textbook bill this fall came to a costly $350. As textbook costs continue to rise, adding to the already expensive college experience, students can't be blamed for feeling a bit frustrated.
"They cost too much," said Santucci, a freshman from Wichita. "I think they're a waste of money."
But there may be a few new remedies on campus to help combat the increasingly high costs. This semester KU Bookstore is offering several innovative options including online price comparison with other retailers, book rental and even print-on-demand materials.
Estella McCollum, director of the KU Bookstore, said the store decided to help students find alternatives to the traditional new and used prices that were previously the only options available.
"As a non-profit store that supports Student Success, it is important to us that students can afford the materials they need in their classes," McCollum said.
There is a new pricing tool on the website, kubookstore.com, that allows students to compare prices for buying books at the store, renting books or purchasing them from other retailers through Amazon and Half.com.
Rather than simply turning students away to find their own bargains, the managers at the bookstore said they felt it was better to facilitate the price options that allow for better deals.
"These tools have allowed us to reach out to those students that explore the online marketplace," said James Rourke, textbook manager at KU Bookstore.
Even if students eventually choose Amazon or Half.com through the online comparison, at least a small portion of the sale is retained for campus services such as Student Union Activities, student employment and scholarships on campus. The University is one of only a small number of schools in the nation offering this
service.
In addition to buying and renting traditional textbooks, students can also choose, for selected titles, to have books printed on demand at Jayhawk Ink.
The bookstore has an agreement with a few academic publishers to print titles and can print course packets, which often include journal articles and professors' notes.
Rachel Barnes, custom materials specialist for KU Bookstore, said printing-on-demand was a convenient alternative that could save students both money and time.
"If we run out of a book, students can just come over and we can have it ready for them in 10 minutes," Barnes said.
While these new changes may result in less overall purchases, they will undoubtedly build a certain level of trust between students and the bookstore, allowing it to continue to thrive in the future.
"We feel these new services are just as much a benefit to the KU Bookstore as they are to the student," Rourke said.
— Edited by Abby Davenport
Don's Auto Center
Lawrence's local repair shop | 11th & Haskell | 841-4833
NATIONAL
Congress to honor WWII veterans
But he was labeled an "enemy alien" after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, because his ancestors came from the same land as the attacking planes.
HONOLULU — Ronald Oba grew up saluting the U.S. flag and saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school, like millions of other American boys.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
To prove his loyalty, Oba joined the Army as soon as President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed Japanese-Americans to enlist. His segregated unit — the 442nd Regimental Combat Team — soon became the most highly decorated military unit in U.S. history for its size and length of service.
This month, Congress is expected to award its highest honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, to Oba and others who fought, even as their countrymen viewed them
"Finally, they're recognizing our contribution during World War II."
with suspicion and distrust.Many wore the uniform while their families spent the war in detention camps back home.
A large granite map shows where the 442nd, which absorbed the previously established Japanese-American unit, the 100th Infantry Battalion, during the war, pushed its way through Italy and France. The area covers the Vosges Mountains, where the unit suffered 800 casualties maneuvering through fog and dense forest against hidden German machine guns to rescue the trapped "Lost
Just outside the clubhouse is a memorial listing the names of nearly 800 Japanese-American soldiers killed in action. A plaque spells out the unit's motto — "Go for broke" — a Pidgin, or Hawaii Creole English, expression meaning "give it your all."
The honorees would include some 6,000 Japanese-Americans who served as translators and interpreters against Japan, often on the front lines with Marines and soldiers fighting from island to island across the Pacific.
The elite medal has been given selectively since 1776, when George Washington was awarded the first. Other honorees include the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Rosa Parks and the Dalai Lama. Congress awarded the medal to the Tuskegee Airmen, the first group of black fighter pilots, in 2006.
Oba is grateful, saying the medal would spread awareness about the veterans.
"We appreciate our legacy being carried on," Oba, now 87, said in an interview at the Honolulu clubhouse for 442nd veterans. "Finally, they're recognizing our contribution during
RONALD OBA
Japanese-American veteran
World War II."
Battalion" of the nearly all-Texan 36th Division.
Sen. Daniel Inouye, who took a break from college to enlist and lost his right arm fighting in Italy, said he
didn't help draft the bill because he would be honored by it.
But the Hawaii Democrat said the medal would give the veterans "a jolt of joy."
"Keep in mind, there were some who volunteered from behind barbed wires. We in Hawaii volunteered knowing that we were 'enemy aliens.' And that's not easy." Inouye said.
"I just hope that Congress will pass it in time so that some of us may look upon and reflect and say that it was all worth it," said Inouye, who turned 86 this month.
The senator hopes the award will come soon because the youngest unit members are in the their mid-80s and only about a third are still alive.
The House is expected to vote on the measure as early as this week. The Senate unanimously passed the bill last month.
Harold Fudena, a Military Intelligence Service translator who served while his parents were at an internment camp, died before he could be honored.
The California native was listening to radio communications in New Guinea in 1943 when he intercepted a Japanese message specifying the time Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto — the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor — would be flying to inspect his troops.
Fudenna's translation allowed the U.S. to shoot down Yamamoto's plane, dealing a severe blow to Japanese morale. Gen. Douglas MacArthur called the feat "one of the singularly most significant actions of the Pacific War."
Keith Fudenna said his father, who died in 1993 at the age of 75, would be pleased by the medal but would deflect any honors directed at him personally. The elder Fudenna always said he was only doing his duty.
"He did not think that what he did was that big of a thing, and there were many others who were more courageous and their stories should be highlighted more than his," said Keith Fudenna, who is an Alameda County Superior Court judge in California.
Ted Tsuiyama, who trained with the 442nd before he was selected to be a Military Intelligence Service translator, cites a story from the beginning of the war to illustrate the difficulties Japanese-Americans faced when so many questioned their loyalty.
A Hawaiian and a Japanese-American soldier in the Hawaii Territorial Guard were manning a gun pit on Oahu shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the Hawaiian turned to his comrade.
"Eh, if dey come, who you going shoot? Dem or me?" he asked, in Pidgin. The Japanese-American replied, "Who you tink, stupid? Me j'us as good American as you!"
Tsukiyama, 89, said many Japanese-Americans enlisted to prove the same point.
The soldiers proved, as Roosevelt said when he announced the formation of the 442nd, that being American is a matter of the "mind and heart" and not race or ancestry, he said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
INTERNATIONAL
NEW YORK — As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly dozens of protesters demonstrated Sunday against his regime.
The protesters set up near Central Park and wore tape across their mouths to demonstrate what they said was the oppressive nature of the Iranian government.
Activists protest Iranian leader
"So the tape is to show that anyone who opposes Ahmadinejad is silenced," said Avi Posnick.
regional coordinator of Stand With Us. "We're here in solidarity with the people of Iran who's voices cannot be heard."
The nonprofit Israeli education group, Stand With Us, organized the rally to bring awareness to what they call human rights abuses in Iran.
Protester Sahand Khoshbaten, a spokesman for the No To Ahmadinejad Committee, said his group supports democratic regime change in Iran, "which is what the people want."
"We believe that by means of the people themselves and Iran's main opposition group that we
On Sunday, Ahmadinejad met with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss developments in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East as well as efforts to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, the U.N. spokesperson's office said.
The protest was one of many expected in the week ahead, including another scheduled for Thursday across from the UN.
would be able to overthrow the Iranian government to establish democracy in that country," Khoshbaten said.