There may be fewer students cracking open books at the start of this semester — not because they don’t want to, but because there aren’t any left.
Many Cal State Long Beach students are struggling to study due to the low availability of textbooks in the campus bookstore.
According to Rosa Hernandez, director of communications for 49er Shops Inc., fewer books were ordered this year because of reduced university enrollment, fewer textbook requests from faculty, estimated class sizes and course offerings, and the number of sales for textbooks used in past semesters.
Faculty were required to submit fall semester textbook requests March 27, though only 46 percent of requests were submitted by that deadline, Hernandez said via e-mail.
Many professors were also unable to meet that date because of classes added to their workload at the last minute, while some classes were dropped completely, which crowded others. Some professors had also changed their books after March 27.
The bookstore has seen more than 100 additional textbook orders per day over the first two weeks of school, according to Hernandez. The store usually receives shipments within 10 working days, with the books on the shelves within 24 hours, she said.
With long waiting periods, many students are looking for alternative stores to the CSULB bookstore.
Aida’s University Books in Long Beach is one seller, but students are seeing fewer books there as well. Aida’s was unable to comment because the company said it was having a busy work week.
Fred Neely, director of Bookstore Services, said in an e-mail to faculty that because Aida’s is under new management, it is no longer selling new textbooks, as well as custom books and packages.
This has led to more requests at the CSULB bookstore — for books that they “ran short on,” Hernandez said. Departments will be notified when books are in stock, Neely said.
The bookstore has actually seen an increase in sales of both used and digital books this semester, Hernandez said.
She added that specifics on profits in comparison to last semester will not be available until next week.
Hernandez also said textbook sales were down last semester in comparison to previous years, citing the Internet as a possible cause.
“The textbook market is changing very similar to the music industry and how it saw its wave of change with the Internet,” Hernandez said. “The textbook market is getting more difficult and the economy that we live in is also affecting the markets.”
According to Hernandez, the bookstore carries every CSULB course’s textbooks and returns about 25 percent of the books — costing more than $1 million — to the publishers.
“Many times, we only get a partial refund for our purchase and not 100 percent of the cost we paid to initially purchase the books,” Hernandez said. She added that there are additional costs, which include labor, shipping and restocking fees.
While many faculty have been understanding of the situation, Neely said “there are a few though that will probably be raising the war flags, which is to be expected since they are concerned for their classes and students, and do not always realize there are another 1,800 or so faculty and 34,000 students that also need their books.”
