Although multiple deliveries are made daily for the bookstore during the rush period, some students were still left without the books they needed for the start of classes this fall.
Interim Bookstore Manager, Jody Yarnall said that generally books will only be unavailable for two days at a time.
“Our goal is to have every book in the store before classes start,” said Yarnall. “That doesn’t always happen for one reason or another.”
More than 28,000 transactions were completed during this fall’s rush, leading to over 51,000 books being sold. Yarnall said although enrollment was down this year, book sales were up 14 percent this fall compared to last fall.
With the semester change and classes being combined, new textbooks were required.
The process of determining how many books are ordered for a specific section requires that the actual seat count is totaled down to the exact number.
“With the semester change and all of the classes being combined, a whole bunch of new books had to be purchased,” said Yarnall. “If you were coming in the fall and you were taking the second part of a class, you still had to buy a new book because it could have been a new book.”
The process of ordering books starts with the department coordinator or chairperson placing an order for the amount of books expected to be needed for the amount of students signed up for classes. If there are any concerns, bookstore employees will talk to the coordinator or chairperson.
“The addition of the ghost sections was our major problem this semester,” said Yarnall. “Because we were aware there were hidden sections, and we ordered for hidden sections, it was just a lot more hidden sections than what we expected. Once we started reordering those, a lot of those being custom, took longer to come in.”
Yarnall said that custom print books save students money, but take between 4-6 weeks to get back in stock.
Emily Balazs said that once her classes started, the instructors told her that she needed more books.
“I got all the books I thought I needed; but after the first day, I had to go back for three more,” said Balazas.
Automotive major, Bryan Castro said that he waited a week for a book for his engine class.
If students still don’t have the books that they need by the time financial aid ends, they can put a rain check on the books. The amount for the books will be charged to the student’s financial aid and they will be notified when the books arrive. However, students can only do this during the last three days that financial aid is open. However, even now there are some books that are unavailable.
“I went in there and wanted the book because I wanted to look through it, but they didn’t have it and they still don’t have it. They said they’d call when they got it, but that was over two weeks ago,” said Rebecca Grice a Visual Communications major.
In addition, Yarnall said the bookstore employees work ahead to prevent a problem by over ordering custom print books.
“The bottom line is, we are here to serve the student and we want the student to have their book for their first day of class,” she said.