[ed. They're everywhere. I wonder why Amazon doesn't start branding everything with their logo like Nike does.]
As school started at Stony Brook University this month, two freshmen, Juan Adames and John Taveras, set out to buy textbooks.
They had not heard yet that the bookstore was a books store no more.
This summer, Stony Brook, part of the State University of New York, announced a partnership with the online retailer Amazon, now the university’s official book retailer. Students can purchase texts through a Stony Brook-specific Amazon page and have them delivered to campus.
In the campus store where the textbooks used to be, there are now adult coloring books, racks of university-branded polos and windbreakers and three narrow bookshelves displaying assorted novels. The rest of the store is a vibrant collage of spirit wear and school supplies: backpacks and baseball caps; pompom hats and striped scarves; notebooks and correction fluid. There will soon be a Starbucks.
“I was a bit thrown off by the appearance,” Mr. Adames said.
It is a conversation occurring on campuses across the country: If more and more students are buying and renting their course books online, why do they need a bookstore? (...)
According to Mr. Walton, textbooks are generally not the focus of college bookstores, anyway. A school on a two-semester system has an approximately eight-week period of textbook activity per year, he estimated.
“The function of the store has been oversimplified to textbooks,” he said. “The store really functions on a variety of levels.”
Admissions tour groups pass through; visiting alumni stop by; faculty and staff members go there for the convenience, Mr. Walton said.
“If anything’s in danger, I would say the thing that’s probably the danger is that textbooks are going to go away,” he said. “The store continues to serve a number of functions that people just don’t recognize.”
At Stony Brook, the former bookstore has become “a branding piece,” Mr. Baigent said, which helps to provide more of a “campus university identity.”
As school started at Stony Brook University this month, two freshmen, Juan Adames and John Taveras, set out to buy textbooks.
They had not heard yet that the bookstore was a books store no more.This summer, Stony Brook, part of the State University of New York, announced a partnership with the online retailer Amazon, now the university’s official book retailer. Students can purchase texts through a Stony Brook-specific Amazon page and have them delivered to campus.
In the campus store where the textbooks used to be, there are now adult coloring books, racks of university-branded polos and windbreakers and three narrow bookshelves displaying assorted novels. The rest of the store is a vibrant collage of spirit wear and school supplies: backpacks and baseball caps; pompom hats and striped scarves; notebooks and correction fluid. There will soon be a Starbucks.
“I was a bit thrown off by the appearance,” Mr. Adames said.
It is a conversation occurring on campuses across the country: If more and more students are buying and renting their course books online, why do they need a bookstore? (...)
According to Mr. Walton, textbooks are generally not the focus of college bookstores, anyway. A school on a two-semester system has an approximately eight-week period of textbook activity per year, he estimated.
“The function of the store has been oversimplified to textbooks,” he said. “The store really functions on a variety of levels.”
Admissions tour groups pass through; visiting alumni stop by; faculty and staff members go there for the convenience, Mr. Walton said.
“If anything’s in danger, I would say the thing that’s probably the danger is that textbooks are going to go away,” he said. “The store continues to serve a number of functions that people just don’t recognize.”
At Stony Brook, the former bookstore has become “a branding piece,” Mr. Baigent said, which helps to provide more of a “campus university identity.”
by Arielle Dollinger, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Dave Sanders
