Amid the hustle of the new school year, some students have found it difficult to purchase their textbooks for class. Late orders and not enough copies of books have caused a rough start to the semester for some students seeking to purchase their textbooks from the Temple bookstores, which are both affiliated with Barnes and Noble, on 13th Street and Montgomery Avenue and Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
“It’s a lot more running around if I can’t just get the books at one time,” said sophomore Carly Kozal, an entrepreneurship major. Kozal said due to a lack of ordered books in the bookstore for her Asian Studies class, she finally ordered the book online. “I checked back at the book store all week,” she said last Friday.Nathniel Norment, chair of the African-American Studies department, said in his personal experience, many times when books are not in the bookstore, it is due to late orders placed by faculty, he said.
“I think the department has a responsibility to make sure its faculty submits book orders on time,” Norment said. But professors are one part of an aggregate of factors that impact the number of books in the bookstore or late orders, said Jim Hanely, general manager for Barnes and Noble at Temple.
“If professors can give [us their book orders] in the spring, we can buy back more used books from current students and have more used books on shelves,” Hanley said.
There was $1.2 million in used books on the shelves this fall, up 20 percent compared to this time last year, Hanley said.Hanley credited the increase in used books partly to professor getting their orders in early.
Normant said Barnes and Noble and the Office of the Provost sent out notifications for faculty to place orders around May or June.
“Early notifications have made the process improve,” he said. “It’s not all on the bookstore.”
Despite such efforts on part of the university and bookstore, some faculty still found it difficult to get their orders in on time. Conrad Weiler, a professor in the political science department, placed an order in mid-August.
“My order was on the late side,” Weiler said, as his students wait for their constitutional law and American government books. “They want more time usually – a month or six weeks,” he said.
Though his books were not in the Temple bookstore he said he did place an order at Zavelle Bookstore on Broad and Master streets. An alternative destination to the Temple bookstore for some students, Zavelle Bookstore usually receives his orders faster than the Temple bookstore, Weiler said. While students in Kozal’s Asian Studies class wait for their book, she said her professor has been covering introductory material a little longer.
“My professor told us to start reading the Asian Studies book,” she said, “but we’re not going to be penalized if we don’t have it yet.”
Renita Burns can be reached at renita.burns@temple.edu
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