Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• Textbook buying season is upon us, and that means a slew of available options for students.

Increasingly, bookstores are facing competition from online marketers. Sites like chegg.com and BookRenter.com allow students to rent books at much cheaper prices than purchasing.

KU Bookstores has a price-shopping tool that features Amazon.com and Half.com prices, in addition to KU’s new and used options. The KU Bookstores also offer a textbook rental option through BookRenter.com.

Folks at the KU Bookstore have told me, however, that it’s important to consider buy-back prices when weighing whether to rent or buy.

But I bet many folks would like the savings up-front, instead of investing so much money up front.

I wrote about this issue back in September, and I got the sense then that renting was become a much more prevalent option for students, thanks to increased online competition.

So far, I haven’t seen much inroads from electronic books, at least at KU, but I can’t help wondering if that’s going to be the next trend.

• I cleaned my desk recently. That’s notable because it’s about a twice-a-year event for me. And every time I do it, I inevitably stumble upon a variety of things that have happened over the last six months. I’ll share a few things here:

— Though most of my communication these days comes through e-mail, I get a smattering of random postal mail, too. Most of it is anonymous, and it never fails to be interesting.

“News Flash!” read one letter I received in August from Richardson, Texas. “The University of Kansas is set to begin formal proceedings in the degree revocation review,” of an official with the American Guild of Organists, the letter informed me. Apparently there was some dust-up over blacklisting of churches.

Well, that sounded interesting to me, until I checked it out and found that KU doesn’t actually institute degree revocation of folks because they blacklist churches. And that there wasn’t any record that this person’s degree was being revoked at all.

— Staying in the mail category, sifting through the desk piles turned up several Departmental News Bulletins from the English department.

“Excelliott!” read one headline, congratulating professor Dorice Elliott on her Kemper award this year. I read those every week, even though they’re addressed to Mike Dekker, who hasn’t worked here for some time. (If anyone’s reading, you can put my name on them!)

I do enjoy reading them (and a variety of other departmental bulletins and newsletters) each week, so I can keep up on what’s going on across campus.

— I found a political piece from a Lawrence resident who writes me frequently trying to encourage me to write about how the religion of Islam is causing all sorts of problems.

I don’t write about religion, and I don’t want to step outside my area of expertise to get in the middle of that debate. So, while I read what this person sends, there’s not much I can write about.

And, he noticed that in this particular letter that turned up on my desk.

“Andy Hyland, a reporter for ‘The Journal-World’ whom I discussed this issue with, is pointedly ignoring the issue,” he wrote, correctly.

I was honored to make a cameo in the political screed.

• In one of the stranger Google experiences I’ve had lately, I Googled “KU fun stuff” in an effort to generate something to put in this blog. Lo and behold, someone at KU was two or three steps ahead of me, as the university has apparently created funstuff.ku.edu.

“You’ve reached the Fun Stuff site where you’ll find…fun stuff!” the site boasts tautologically.

You can find KU backgrounds there, screensavers, door hangers, a paper football and a whole host of other things, too.

If only all my Google searches were that successful…

• Sign me up for your departmental news bulletins or send me any other tips for Heard on the Hill at ahyland@ljworld.com. I really do appreciate all the tips, suggestions and feedback I get — yes, Leonard, even those political screeds.