Bookstore a center of campus
 

Another thing I'm wondering about, bookstores on a US campus are a central part and don't sell just books. On a campus there might be a store for snacks, food and magazines, maybe a small greek store etc etc.
But school merchandise, t-shirts, sweatshirts of whatever always seem to be sold in the bookstore. WHY there and not the convenience store which sells snacks, frozen foods etc. :) Clothing and stuff seems always sold in bookstores.

Oh and also are the bookstores ever external company branches (like a Barnes & Noble or Borders) or just RCU bookstore? (R for Random).

edited for spelling

Barnes and Noble owns the book store at my University.

I glanced at your profile ktsnake and went to the website and found yes, they do carry lots of non book items too. :). What I found bizarre, is that other universities e.g. Penn State when you visit their site and go to the bookstore pages they have the exact same page template (as your alma mater) with links for '...Cash For Your Books!', 'Show your school spirit!' etc. I found they are all Barnes & Noble - Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, Inc. is one successful company!

Do Borders do the same elsewhere and others? I still wonder about the initial question too, in terms of why it is established that the bookstore does this. :)

I don't know. Campus bookstores in Canada sell non school supplies with logos as well. I think it'll be kind of weird to sell clothes and other campus paraphanalia in a convenience store. I've always associated that kind of stuff with the campus bookstore (along with glasses, mugs, baseball caps, etc with the school's logo on it). I guess I don't associate food stores with gift shops.

Well, we also have a bookstore accross the street from campus called Thompson's. They have a store in Oklahoma City as well. I don't know how prevelant they are. Sometimes their prices are different. But usually, about the same.

Price fixing at its finest.

We had 3 bookstores. Two were owned by the same people and had prices that were about the same, but the other one was a little cheaper though it was further away. The walk was worth it, believe me.

Re: Bookstore a center of campus
 

At my US undergrad university, our bookstore is owned by the university. It's like a mega one-stop shopping place. We could get ALL of our textbooks (which, by the way, were shelved according to each class/module), stationary, uni clothing, uni merchandise, greek life merchandise, computers, software, books for fun reading, magazines, backpacks, gift items, photocopies and so on! The only thing they did not sell was food and drinks!


We did have a few convenience stores around campus which sold food, drinks, some stationary and supplies and the occasional uni clothing or gifts. Additionally, both our university and the student union have food courts where students can grab hamburgers, mexican food, chinese food, salad bar, pizza, coffee, baked goods or whatever.


http://www.csulb.edu/aux/bookstore/index.html


Though, when I went to England for grad school, I was taken aback by the "lack" of a campus bookstore as I know it. My professors simply gave me a list of suggested books and texts and I had to traipse around town looking for them in "regular" bookshops. I do not believe that the University of Bristol has an official "campus bookstore". There is a Waterstones bookstore located inbetween our library and the sports complex. They probably have some kind of agreement with the uni. The same goes for the Blackwells bookstore which is next door to my department - that's where I got most of my books. Though, all they sell is texts, pleasure reading and the occasional stationary.


I guess the idea is that, though there's no campus bookstore, local area shops will do their best to stock books that students are likely to need. Need pens and pencils? Well you have to haul your behind to a stationary store....


On the other hand, the University of Bristol Student Union has a student shop in the union building itself. There are no books! :) Just food, drinks, uni clothing, uni gifts, stationary, beer/wine, and sweets! If you want a university sweatshirt, then you can only get it from the union shop....


http://www.ubu.org.uk/main/services/shops


(I love the fact that the photo they use to depict the shop is a shot of the shelves of alcohol and not of the other merchandise...heh)


.....Kelly :)

Our campus bookstore sells non-school supplies as well. They sell school merchandise, books, CDs, movies, computer supplies, etc, etc. We also have a co-op bookstore which just sells textbooks at lower prices.
However, our convience store also sells school merchandise like sweatshirts, t-shirts, etc, etc.