Ballein also noted changes in the industry that have made hardcover textbooks less and less popular. 

"Our book list has shrunken dramatically of actual hard copies of books that (the university) uses for classes anymore," Ballein said. "Almost every introductory-level class that has a high enrollment is using access codes and … hard copies are kind of disappearing."

Even students who are seeking out hard copies rarely come in person to buy them anymore, Ballein said. With all of these changes, SBS is facing the consequences. 

"There's just fewer and fewer books to sell and fewer and fewer customers every year," Ballein said. "Everybody wants to shop online and have it delivered to their door. You'd be amazed at the number of orders that I do through my website, that I literally ship across the street to campus."

The Spartan Bookstore, MSU’s on-campus bookstore in the International Center, has also seen this shift toward online materials, but manager Italo Rodriguez said there is still a demand for physical copies. 

"I think here it goes both ways," Rodriguez said. "A lot of people like digital, but a lot of people hate digital. It is like a love or hate situation with the digital book."

Criminal justice and humanities pre-law junior Lacy Newman said she still prefers to purchase the hard copies of her books if she can. 

"My senior year of high school, it was starting to turn into that our textbooks were on our laptops at school, and I just couldn't focus that way," Newman said. "I always like to feel the paper … I like to mark when the next chapter is so I can see, oh, I have this many pages left. It's just a really big personal preference."

In her classes and among friends, Newman has noticed the shift toward online materials. Overall, she said, everyone is going to go for the option that costs less, and that usually is the online version. 

"Typically you can find a free link of the textbook, and it's a PDF of the textbook, and there you go," she said. "You don't have to pay for anything, so fair enough."

Through the Spartan Bookstore website, students have the option for either a physical book or digital copy. 

"We have (books) on the website and in store, we always try to, because the digital version is always cheaper than the physical version," Rodriguez said. "So you always offer the student the cheapest option, and then they choose which way they want to go."