An advisory committee has been formed to evaluate Tufts' bookstore before its contract with Barnes and Noble expires in June 2002.
Faculty, administrators, and Tufts Community Union (TCU) senators will work together on the bookstore advisory committee to ensure that the renegotiated contract addresses student concerns about perceived high costs and merchandise availability.
Textbook prices and the overall selection of products are two of the primary issues the committee is focusing on.
Tufts has a 15-year relationship with Barnes and Noble, and will not likely hire a different company to run the campus bookstore. While the University can operate the bookstore independently, like many large campuses, such an endeavor would cost millions of dollars in initial capital investment.
Although the University's contract with Barnes and Noble will not run out for another year, preliminary planning must begin now to allow sufficient time for final contract negotiations, according to Dining and Business Services Director Patti Lee Klos.
"Bookselling is about buying a service... we need time to make a changeover," she said.
The committee is working to gauge student input and concerns while brainstorming for ideas. In order to facilitate the process, Senate Administration and Budget Committee Chair Andrew Potts and Services Committee Chair Melinda Coolidge sent an e-mail announcement to students soliciting their opinions.
"We're still formulating our game plan," Potts said. "It's less of a Senate project and more of a Senate-led project with a student initiative."
Among the items students would like to see added to the bookstore's offerings are DVDs and a wider selection of compact discs, according to Coolidge and Potts.
This issue does not necessary involve the contractor, Klos said, but rather the several distributors that the contractor uses. As such, the committee is exploring other distributors from which Barnes and Noble can purchase its inventory.
"The answer isn't necessarily finding a new company," Potts said. "It's finding a bookstore that would best serve the students and looking at everywhere it touches."
Still, there are unresolved problems. Textbook prices are becoming an increasing worry, especially since students have begun to explore other purchasing options, including online booksellers, where many of the items carried by the bookstore can be found at significantly lower costs.
"The main gripe is the price of textbooks and the fact that we can find them online for cheaper," Coolidge said. "We're not exactly sure why that is but we're looking into it."
Coolidge and Potts researched online textbook distributors and discovered shocking price differentials, including several items that were actually cheaper at Barnes and Noble's website (www.barnesandnoble.com) than in its bookstore on Tufts' campus. The Macroeconomics textbook, for example, costs $92 at the Tufts bookstore, but only $85.50 at the Barnes and Noble website, $69 at Borders, $78 at BookAMillion, and $85.10 at Ecampus.
Klos said that pricing is a complicated process and can be hard to change. "How to make the books cheaper is a difficult issue," she said. "Any textbook seller is held back by what the industry does... the bookstore [because of its size] doesn't have the same purchasing power of a store like Office Max."
Among the faculty's major complaints has been the difficulty in obtaining textbooks in time for the start of classes. Klos said that this happens when courses require specialty materials that are only available from international publishers. She also pointed out that only 45 percent of the faculty meet the Oct. 15 deadline for book requests.
The bookstore has already undergone several changes this year, most notably the hiring of a new manager, Wayne Diskin. Diskin served as the store's manager since October, when former manager Amanda Chase, as well as a few employees, left.
Diskin said he was happy with the formation of the advisory committee, and that he has seen similar groups at other schools, such as Brandeis.
"It's their bookstore... and I can basically order what the students want," he said.
Plans are already in the works to increase the amount of convenience items sold at the bookstore and to reduce the amount of floor space allocated to computer software. Students will be able to purchase computer programs online through a link on the bookstore website, where they will find discounted prices.
