At the Oct. 16 Faculty Senate meeting, representatives from Barnes & Noble bookstores, who has a contract to sell textbooks for all IU campuses, gave a presentation that addressed faculty and student concerns of ISBN availability, ordering and returning books and reasons why a bookstore committee has not been staffed months after its announcement.
Marcia Stewart, regional manager for Barnes & Noble, said Barnes & Noble has the technology available to add the ISBNs to their Web site, but no decisions concerning ISBNs could be made at her level, and all complaints from students or faculty could be sent to the Barnes & Noble contracting representative at IU Bloomington.
Flo Gonya, SGA president, asked Stewart who specifically made those decisions at IU Bloomington.
“You know, I’m not exactly sure; I know it’s a new person, and I think her name is Jill,” Stewart said.
Jill Schunk, IU Bloomington Purchasing Department director of operations, was unavailable for comment, but it was confirmed by Joe Bender, IU Bloomington Bookstore manager, and Tim Rice, IU Bloomington Purchasing Department director of administration, that Schunk is the person responsible for decisions concerning the ISBNs.
Stewart said Barnes & Noble is capable of providing the ISBNs, but they will not until they are given permission to do so.
“We will not put ISBNs on our Web site until Bloomington makes a decision,” Stewart said.
Stewart said Barnes & Noble had ordered 100 percent of the books requested by IUS faculty last year, and added that Barnes & Noble wanted to get 15 to 20 percent of those books returned.
When students enroll in a class, the professors order enough books from Barnes & Noble to supply every student with a book; if students get books from an alternate source, the excess books not purchased at the IUS Bookstore are returned to Barnes & Noble.
“If you continue to return too much merchandise, the publishers will add fees to the books,” Stewart said.
James Beeby, assistant professor of history, said it is unreasonable to expect an exact estimate of how many books will be needed.
“Enrollment is a difficult thing to judge; students register at the last minute, they drop classes at the last minute, how can you expect us to predict those things?” Beeby said.
Stewart said estimates are based on previous semesters’ sales.
“We are going to look at historical history; if they consistently sell four books, I’m not going to order four books, but I’m also not going to order 40 books,” Stewart said. “We have to avoid returning 38 percent of books ordered, because you [faculty and students] have to remember our goal here is to sell something but we want to have the correct number.”
Miscommunication between the IUS faculty and Barnes & Noble was also addressed at the meeting.
Julie Faulds, IUS Bookstore assistant manager, said that an e-mail had been sent to department coordinators, who were then supposed to relay the message to IUS faculty, saying professors could begin ordering books for their spring classes.
Many of the professors said they had not received the e-mail.
Faulds said they had to send the e-mail through department coordinators, because they don’t have access to faculty e-mail.
Gilbert Atnip, vice chancellor of Academic Affairs, suggested the e-mail be sent to the Office of Academic Affairs, who would then filter the information to the faculty. All parties agreed.
Faulds said despite the miscommunication 28 percent of book orders from the IUS faculty were already in.
“We have 28 percent, so somebody got the e-mail,” Faulds said.
After a series of questions were posed to Stewart, including a fruitless attempt to organize a bookstore committee using library staff as IUS faculty representatives suggested by Melanie Hughes, IUS librarian and coordinator of automation and technical services, Stewart presented an informal DVD reviewing the Barnes & Noble book ordering policy.
By MICHAEL MARCELL
Staff Writer
mdmarcell@ius.edu
