Book lists go online

Author: Austin Davis

On Nov. 4, the College Bookstore announced that it would begin posting booklists for classes online starting spring 2009.

The bookstore's Web site now lists all of the required textbooks for each class as well as each book's new and used price at the bookstore itself. Currently, the Web site only lists the books for fall 2008; while the bookstore is too busy with its current renovations to guarantee booklists for Winter Term 2009, Book Store Manager Robert Jansen, assures the student body that the booklist system should be in place two weeks before spring term. Even that list, however will be "only as good as the facility… [and] up to 10 percent of our information might change between when we first get it and when the semester starts." Regardless, he hopes that this new initiative will both "deliver more value to the students" and increase the stature of the bookstore itself.

Once the hectic renovations of the bookstore end, Jansen even hopes to add a purchasing feature for class books to the Web site. Students will either have their purchases waiting on reserve for them in the bookstore or have a special shopping day for those who preordered their books.

While Jansen knew that online booklists would eventually be made available, the issue of timing had been a topic of significant internal discussion in the bookstore. The Student Government Association had approached him last spring with a specific and pointed request for online booklists, but "there was a lot in motion" at the bookstore with Proctor Hall's massive renovations. He planned to "shelve the idea until fall 2009, once we got out of this war-zone" of renovations, but the amount of student interest pushed the bookstore to work on a tighter timeline. Jansen found the Internet resources to provide these booklists through his web host, the Missouri Book Company, and the project went live this November.

With a goal as high as a "world-class bookstore to go with this world-class institution," the recent release of booklists should come as no surprise from Jansen. Envisioning a "bookstore without peer," Jansen researched 20 of Middlebury's closest peer institutions; just two of their bookstores offer booklists, and one of those two only "tapes the booklists onto their window." Building on the success of the Bookstore's Facebook page and the new Panther Rewards program, Jansen acknowledges the new realities of retail in the 21st century: "We will be defined more by how we respond and how we listen to the student more than the products we sell."

Even so, Chelsea Guster '11 plans to use these booklists to avoid the bookstore: "Oftentimes books are much cheaper from other sources, and now students will finally have the proper information, like editions," to shop elsewhere. However, after researching other colleges and universities that have similar booklist programs, Jansen believes that "there won't be a significant impact on business" in the bookstore in spite of Guster's dissent.

Matt Sunderland '11 envisioned an entirely different consequence of online booklists: "It will probably reduce student-professor communication during the summer. By 100 percent." Regardless, Jansen is going ahead with the project, and all class booklists will be online at the bookstore's Web site for future semesters.