2008 Woodie Awards
Bookstore's Policies Result in Textbook Shortage
Dyson College affected more than Lubin School
Eugene Roymisher
Issue date: 2/9/05 Section: News
The Pace University Barnes & Noble understocks required texts if it believes students will seek out other alternatives to buy the books, and by doing so, avoids fees imposed by publishers for returning unsold books, according to manager Wally Planell. The result is the lack of textbooks available in the store that has continued to frustrate professors and students alike this semester.
The bookstore requires professors to place their orders four to six weeks before the end of the previous semester. Planell said that only about a third of all professors get their orders in on time, and some will not place an order at all or do it the week after classes commence.
Planell said, "We're not perfect. We do misplace an order here or there." He also explained that the bookstore uses the sales history of a book from the two previous semesters to develop a ratio of students in the class that will buy it there. If a book does not sell and has to be sent back to the publisher, the store has to pay various fees for shipment, labor and restocking.
"If we do sellout, we try to get it back as fast as we can," he said, and that is usually two to three business days when done in the initial weeks of the semester.
The policy of professors handing in book orders a month or two before the previous semester ends is also practiced in the NYU, Columbia and Baruch College bookstores. All three also use previous sales history to determine how many books they should actually order in relation to the numbers requested.
However, an insufficient number of books ordered for certain classes at Pace reflect a lack of communication between professors and the bookstore staff.
English Department Chair Walter Srebnick said, "The first week of class, I got fifteen faculty complaints about book orders, one of which was my own." Planell says he only received one or two complaints from professors in the English department.
Srebnick says two of the three books he ordered did not arrive when classes began: "My students were told that I did not order them, but when I came to the store and it was clear that I had, in fact, ordered them, they told me they did not know who it was that said I didn't."
The bookstore requires professors to place their orders four to six weeks before the end of the previous semester. Planell said that only about a third of all professors get their orders in on time, and some will not place an order at all or do it the week after classes commence.
Planell said, "We're not perfect. We do misplace an order here or there." He also explained that the bookstore uses the sales history of a book from the two previous semesters to develop a ratio of students in the class that will buy it there. If a book does not sell and has to be sent back to the publisher, the store has to pay various fees for shipment, labor and restocking.
"If we do sellout, we try to get it back as fast as we can," he said, and that is usually two to three business days when done in the initial weeks of the semester.
The policy of professors handing in book orders a month or two before the previous semester ends is also practiced in the NYU, Columbia and Baruch College bookstores. All three also use previous sales history to determine how many books they should actually order in relation to the numbers requested.
However, an insufficient number of books ordered for certain classes at Pace reflect a lack of communication between professors and the bookstore staff.
English Department Chair Walter Srebnick said, "The first week of class, I got fifteen faculty complaints about book orders, one of which was my own." Planell says he only received one or two complaints from professors in the English department.
Srebnick says two of the three books he ordered did not arrive when classes began: "My students were told that I did not order them, but when I came to the store and it was clear that I had, in fact, ordered them, they told me they did not know who it was that said I didn't."