Bookstore now run by Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble College Booksellers signed a five-year contract with Rice to operate the Rice Campus Store July 25. The renovated and renamed Rice Bookstore opened with a greater variety of books, less Rice merchandise and a less cluttered layout.
The Bookstore will offer extended hours for the first four days of classes and six cash registers — instead of four — to reduce time spent waiting in checkout lines, Bookstore Manager Evelyn Morton said.
Barnes & Noble has hired seven employees who were previously employed by the campus store, as well as seven temporary student employees — from Rice and other universities — and four other temporary employees for the beginning of the semester. Barnes & Noble operates enough campus bookstores in the area that it would be able to bring in additional employees during busy times, Associate Vice President for Administration Neill Binford said.
The Bookstore will stay open with reduced hours on Saturdays throughout the year, instead of only during the fall, as was done before.
Student Center Director Boyd Beckwith said he thinks the Bookstore operations will be an improvement over the Rice-owned Campus Store.
“It seems like [the store] is going to be much more customer service-oriented in terms of its hours,” Beckwith said.
Students will be allowed to bring their bookbags into the store, rather than having to leave them in the Student Center hallway as they were previously required to do. Theft alarms have been installed on exit doors, and more employees will be present on the floor of the store, Morton said.
Barnes & Noble will also buy back textbooks throughout the year. At the end of each semester, the store will buy back textbooks professors agree to use the next semester for 50 percent of list cost, Morton said.
As of Tuesday, about 95 percent of book orders were on the shelves, although late orders from professors were still coming in, Morton said.
The Bookstore will also carry faculty-authored books, bargain books, reference books and the top 10 books on the national bestseller list.
Rice decided to contract with Barnes & Noble in anticipation of the creation of a large bookstore in the upcoming collaborative research center with the Texas Medical Center institutions, to be constructed at the intersection of University Blvd. and Main St., Binford said.
“The challenge we have to [maintain] a large academic bookstore is that Rice doesn’t have, in its own right, enough business to support a huge academic bookstore, like Harvard or Yale or Princeton … but [in the collaborative research center] that store could [be built because it would also serve the entire community],” Binford said.
Discussions about changing the bookstore have gone on since the 1990s because in its current location, the store has been too small and has not offered enough academic titles, Binford said.
In the estimated five years before the bookstore moves into the research center, Barnes & Noble will be able to become acquainted with Rice and help Rice plan for the new facility, Binford said. In addition, the company will have to deliver a high quality of customer service in order to submit a competitive bid to run the larger store, Binford said.
Barnes & Noble has contracted to rent the space it is using from Rice by paying a percentage of its gross sales. Binford said Rice’s primary aim is to not lose money.
Barnes & Noble paid to renovate the bookstore, and will perform more capital improvements later this year, Binford said.
Barnes & Noble College Booksellers operates about 400 bookstores at colleges and universities across the country, including bookstores at the University of Houston, the University of Maryland-College Park, Texas A&M University and Yale University.
The privately held company shares resources with its publicly-traded Barnes & Noble Inc. affiliate, Binford said.
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