New Bookstore, New Problems

Vincent Ferrer/The Mirror

This semester was the first time that students purchased their textbooks from the new bookstore in town on Post Road. Although the new bookstore has a lot to offer to the town, and is very spacious, the move made it difficult for students to get textbooks.  This is just going to be something that we’ll have to get used to.

Now called the “Stag Spirit Shop”, the old bookstore in Barone Campus Center holds Fairfield University apparel, along with some school supplies and toiletry items. In past semesters, it was also the place to buy books.

It was very convenient to go to the BCC to pick up textbooks, and return them if necessary. Now, the buying of textbooks involves a trip into town, which is basically a one hour ordeal if you don’t have a car on campus.

I have not heard one student say that the new way of getting textbooks from the town bookstore is better than the old method. Most complained about not getting books on time, or if there was a mistake in the order, they needed to find a way to get into town so that they could get their homework done on time.

I had a mistake with my order too. I ordered my books, and chose the option to have them delivered to Stag Spirit Shop so that I could pick them up. My order got messed up, and the bookstore accidentally gave me the wrong Calculus textbook, when I had ordered the correct one. I called the bookstore in town, and they told me I needed to come into town to come and get the new one.

Now, if we still had our old bookstore, this mix up would not have been such a pain. I would have walked to the BCC to change the book, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, I needed to hop on the Stag Bus, and basically waste an hour of my day for something that would have taken not even five minutes.

Joe McConville, a sophomore, says that even though he tries to order most of his books on Amazon.com to save money, the trip to the town bookstore was inevitable when he could not get all of his textbooks online. He says that it is too far away, and that all in all, having our books not on our campus is just “stupid.”

I think many students would agree that this semester, it was much more difficult to get textbooks. I mean, wouldn’t it just make more sense to have our textbooks on the campus we go to, instead of a mile away in town? I think it would be different if we all had our cars on campus, but having to rely on a friend to take you to the bookstore, or having to wait every 45 minutes for the shuttle to come by just seems ridiculous.

Possible solution? Maybe we could have textbooks in the Stag Spirit Shop for the first two weeks of the semester, and then after most of our textbook buying is over, we could move the textbooks back to the store in town? And what is going to happen when we have to return rented textbooks and sell back our used ones?

I guess I’m going to be getting on the shuttle with the 15 books that I had to buy this semester for my courses.  Now that’s going to be something to complain about. When getting textbooks should be such an easy task, the new bookstore just adds more stress on students on us at the beginning of a new semester.