Time to Turn the Page: Bookstore Under New Ownership

On July 13, Pitt-Greensburg announced the campus bookstore is now under operation of Barnes and Noble College (B&N), a program advertising an easier way for college students to get textbooks.  

Students can pay for this service as part of their tuition in the beginning of the term for $24 per academic credit. Barnes and Noble College’s website says that through the program, students should “receive their materials on or before the first day of class, delivered seamlessly.” 

However, the program created obstacles for some professors and students. Dr. Timothy Holler, associate professor of Criminal Justice, has had students report trouble getting the books he requested through B&N on time.  

“Many of my students didn’t have their e-books specifically, as well as codes for outside material,” Dr.Holler said. “Students didn’t get those until about three weeks into the semester.”  

This caused issues with Dr. Holler’s itinerary. 

“We’ve missed almost a little less than a quarter of the semester” due to the books’ late arrival, Dr. Holler said. “So, students were behind on assignments,” and he needed to readjust deadlines.   

Stephen Taylor, a sophomore and Community Assistant on campus, noticed some issues receiving books on time as well. 

In one class, he and fellow classmates got an email saying one of their books was on backorder. In a different class of Taylor’s, there was difficulty posting the textbook online, and due to this, his class assignment was delayed by about two weeks.  

However, the punctuality of the service is not the only complaint among students. For some students, particularly those pursuing a major outside of STEM, the B&N program can be more costly than if they were to find books using an outside option.  

Taylor looked up the prices of his textbooks on other book selling sites and found that he “would have saved a lot more money” if he had bought them from Amazon rather than using the B&N service.  

“For me, this semester, it just didn’t make sense,” Taylor said. For himself, he feels it was “a bad financial decision.”