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Bookstore committed to better service

By Carolyn Grindrod
[email protected]
Editor-in-Chief

Zach Pease, art history major from Rome, Ga., makes a purchase at the Floyd campus bookstore.

When the Georgia Highlands College bookstore was privatized fall semester 2005, the bookstore staff and students as well faced many complications in the process of switching systems.

�We had to retrain the staff on the new Barnes and Nobles system,� stated Jan Pearson, the manager of the bookstore. �The lines in the bookstore spring semester were a result, in that the retraining process using the new electronic filing didn�t go as smoothly as we had hoped. However, we should have all the kinks sorted out by next semester.�

Along with instituting a new system, the bookstore has also increased the number of items for sale in the store including more snacks and more apparel.

�We thought it would be a good idea to bring in more convenience items, like you see in the gas stations, so the students, particularly night students, would have a greater snack collection when their classes run late,� said Pearson.

Barnes and Noble now offers a new year-round book buyback system so that students can get fast cash for their books. �It used to be that we had buyback a few days after the semester ended, and that was the only time you could sell back books,� said Pearson. �Now we can buy back the books for a retail value all year long. The more used books we have, then the more used books we can offer to the students.�

According to Dr. Wilbur Shuler, vice president of finance, the main obstacle the bookstore had to face was how to process loans and financial aid, excluding the Pell Grant and HOPE Scholarship. The problem arose when the bookstore was first bought out by a third party. The college now has to have authorization to give the student�s loan money to the bookstore for a student to buy books.

�We had to make a way that students could authorize us the right to give the money to the bookstore since we can�t take the student�s money by national law and give it to the bookstore. So, we started the online authorization so the process would be all electronic, and in turn, more simplified, so the student wouldn�t have to fill out several forms,� stated Shuler. �This hadn�t been a problem when we owned the bookstore, but now that we�re working with a third party, the process becomes more complicated.�

The bookstore also wants to make the process of buying books simpler for students as well. According to Shuler, once a student registers online for classes, there will be a prompt that will ask if the student would like to buy his or her books now. �We�re trying to make everything electronic and as simple as possible for students to get their books,� stated Shuler.

The college has also created a new bookstore committee that will give suggestions on how to make the bookstore more beneficial to students. �We hope to get suggestions from students and staff on how to better the bookstore,� stated Shuler.

As for book prices being on the rise, Shuler and Pearson both agree that the books� prices naturally go up over time, and prices are set on the publishers� pricings, not set directly by Barnes and Nobles Booksellers.

�Overall, we�re working trying to better the bookstore for our students. We hope to make the new bookstore as user-friendly as possible,� stated Shuler. �However, the process will take time.�