Collegian

Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Matthew Mohrbach Lines wind through the bookstore as students try to find the books that they need for their classes as the beginning of the semester rush hits campus.

Students who tried to browse the bookstore in the opening days of the semester have been shocked to discover that there is not only a line to buy books from the cash register, but also a line to even enter the bookstore.
The line winds around the cubicles inside the Multi-Purpose Center, and students are let in around twelve at a time to get books and stand in yet another line to buy them.
"This is the epitome of ugly," said Claudette Farrell, manager of the bookstore.
Farrell said that the lines to enter the bookstore were longest on the first day of financial aid, when they were close to an hour long. Since then, she says, they have been shorter.
"Some students have had to leave the line," she said. "They have classes to get to, and they just didn't expect to be waiting so long."
Farrell said that last year's bookstore lines also took up to an hour to get through, but the perception of how long they were was not the same, and that increases everyone's anxiety.
"People feel like they're going to be waiting twice as long because there are two lines," Farrell explained. "That's just not the case."
Farrell explained that letting students enter in groups helps control the amount of people in the bookstore at any one time and makes the line to the cash register shorter than the line into the store.
"We don't have too many alternatives to what we're doing right now," she explained.
While the bookstore staff has tried placing the cash register and lines in various places, they have found that while what they have now isn't perfect, it's what has worked the best.
"We are open to any suggestions," Farrell said.
"Ninety percent of students have been patient and kind," Farrell said. She explained that a few students had tried cut lines by going through the front of the bookstore, but they had been in the minority.
"This is difficult for us and difficult for them," Farrell said. "This move really hasn't worked in facilitating students. The planning wasn't very farsighted."
Farrell said that while they were told the square footage was the same in their new space as it had been in the College Center, they just haven't had enough room to keep all the materials they had in their old space.

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