JACKSONVILLE – A semester’s worth of college textbooks can weigh enough to cause shoulders to ache, and cost enough to squelch the prospect of a spring break trip.

But that might soon change.

Two evolving means of acquiring college textbooks – downloading digital editions and renting instead of buying – are growing in popularity across the nation. The first has been available to Jacksonville State University students since at least 2003, and the second might become available in the not-so-distant future.

“We see both these as a significant trend,” said Jade Roth, with Barnes & Noble College Bookstores. She serves as the vice president for books and digital strategy for the company, which operates the on-campus bookstore at JSU, where students return to class this week.

Barnes & Noble, which operates a total of 637 college book stores nationwide, had pilot rental programs at just 25 locations last year. Because of the popularity at those locations, the company expanded the rental program to about 300 stores this fall, and Roth expects the program to continue growing.

“We expect the vast majority of the programs we’re serving to adopt renting,” she said.

If so, it might benefit students like Ashley Maner and Kayla Dalton, both juniors at JSU. They each said they spend about $400 per semester buying books, both new and used.

Currently, students have the option of purchasing digital editions, new print editions at full price or used editions at a reduced price. Each has a different price point, and rented books, if made available at JSU, would be one of the cheapest options available for students, according to Roth.

As an example, she said that if a new textbook at one of their stores cost $100, it might sell for $75 after it was used. A digital edition of that same book might sell for $55, and a rented copy could be borrowed for $45 per semester.

A student who needed that book for class would do best to purchase a used copy at $75 and sell it back for 50 percent of that value at the end of the semester.

However, bookstores only purchase the most popular books back, and students sometimes receive much less than a 50 percent return. So students like Maner and Dalton never know how much money, if any, they’ll get back at the end of the semester.

Roth said renting is a much more secure option for students because they know how much their books will cost from the beginning of the semester.

“Even though that’s the best value, the student is still taking a bit of a risk,” she said.

Rental programs that are already in place at college bookstores charge students about half the original price for rentable books, which make up about 30 percent of all books, according to Roth.

For a book to be deemed rentable, it must meet a few criteria. First, it must not have worksheets or other disposable components; it needs to be a book for a core class that is regularly offered; and it needs to be something that’s not expected to have a new edition with drastic revisions.

As for the digital editions, Roth said she expects sales in that market to pick up, though they have been sluggish since the company first began offering them seven years ago. That’s because those editions have more interactive and visual components than ever before.

“It’s a totally different experience,” she said. “I don’t think those tools were available in the past.”

Cindy Turner, the manager of the independent Jacksonville Bookstore off-campus, is also weighing just how practical the rental program would be for a bookstore that serves JSU. The rental programs, which she said were popularized a little more than a year ago, can be less practical for smaller universities where some classes are offered with less regularity.

“The biggest thing is a book has to be used continuously,” Turner said. “When classes are offered continuously, it’s easier to start a program.”

The programs can also be costly as they may require new computers or software to track the rented books throughout the semesters. Still, Turner said, book rentals might offer an additional way to serve her customers, especially as unemployment remains high and the cost of attending college is getting higher.

“People have less money to spend,” she said. “(We’re) trying to find any options we can to help.”

Before the bookstores will begin implementing the programs, the people who operate them want to know they will be practical. Even so, it likely won’t do away with the existing system anytime soon.

For years to come, Roth said, she expects students will still want to be able to keep some of their regular print-edition textbooks. Some in Jacksonville agree.

“As a parent, it would be wonderful, but I’m sure there will be some kind of books she would want to keep,” said Lisa Socha, the mother of an education major from Albertville. She said the expense, while costly, is expected, though a reduction in cost would be welcomed by the Sochas.

“We plan for it,” she said. “I’m sure there would be something that we would do with that money if we had it, but we don’t.”