A major publisher reached an agreement with the UCLA Bookstore that will have three editions of a popular calculus textbook selling for an average of almost $23 cheaper than before, and UCSB could soon be in on the discount.

The April 19 agreement between publisher Thomson Learning and the bookstore to slash prices on editions of Calculus: Early Transcendentals, Edition Five, came weeks after the release of a petition that was signed by math professors across the country to make the book more affordable.

The California Public Interest Research Group (CalPIRG) sent the petition, signed by over 500 mathematics faculty members from 100 universities, to Thomson Learning on April 6. Thomson Learning maintains that the price cut at UCLA was not provoked by the petition.

“They keep denying it to the very end,” UCSB CalPIRG representative Ashley McKenzie said. “But for some reason, out of nowhere, they decided to negotiate on the textbook we’ve been targeting.”

McKenzie said Cynthia Ellestad, course materials manager at the UCSB Bookstore, was awaiting a reply from Thomson Learning about lowering the price of the book here.

Thomson Learning agreed to lower its wholesale prices to UCLA on the three editions from an average of $85 to an average of $68. The bookstore agreed to lower the retail prices from an average of about $115 to an average of $92.

“Just the fact that they have negotiated this contract with UCLA shows that there is plenty of room for them to drop their prices,” McKenzie said.