After seven years of doing business on the Vestal Parkway, The Bookbridge bookstore closed its doors for the last time this past Saturday.
Bookbridge was owned by the Nebraska Book Company, headquartered in Lincoln, Neb. The company runs 245 bookstores across the country ‘ but with the closing of Bookbridge, they now own only one bookstore in New York state, located at the State University at Buffalo.
Jerry Mullinix, a representative of the College Textbooks division of Nebraska Book Co., said that Bookbridge was, to put it bluntly, ‘unprofitable.’ He noted that, as with any business, location was a key factor. Being across the street from campus ‘was killing us,’ Mullinix said. ‘We always had trouble getting people over that six lane highway.’
Caitlin Dyer, formerly the assistant manager of Bookbridge, told the Press & Sun Bulletin last Thursday that ‘it’s a difficult environment for the college textbook industry.’
But according to Rick Watson, general manager of the Barnes & Noble-owned Binghamton University bookstore, business is doing just fine. ‘We’re not having any problems with sales,’ Watson said. ‘Our sales are actually increasing.’
He added that frequently changing textbook editions, an issue commonly bemoaned by students who hope to buy books used rather than new, ‘shouldn’t make anybody go out of business ‘ you just order whatever edition you need.’
Aaron Berthelette, manager of the popular used bookstore Mando Books, noted that, despite Watson’s confidence, textbook sales don’t necessarily account for steady profits at the campus bookstore. ‘Lower book sales wouldn’t really hurt them,’ Berthelette said. ‘They make millions of dollars a year on sweatshirts and all that stuff.’
Berthelette claims that what likely drove Bookbridge out of business was the fact that ‘their prices weren’t that much better than the bookstore on campus. Bookbridge was owned by a big corporation, too.’
As the Press & Sun reported, in its final days, Bookbridge employed a humble staff of one part-time and two full-time employees.
Mando’s recent relocation to Bunn Hill Road (directly across the Vestal Parkway from The Bookbridge) might have also exacerbated the competition.
But competition isn’t only between independent and corporate-owned bookstores. Even the cheapest used books might not compare to what students can find online at popular Web sites such as Half.com and Amazon.com.
And the growing popularity of Freeload Press, a company which provides free electronic textbooks to students by putting advertisements in the pages of the books to cover production costs, might prove a threat to book-buying altogether.
The skyrocketing cost of college textbooks has been an increasingly common concern among students, parents and government officials alike. In 2003, New York State Senator Charles E. Schumer proposed the first-ever New York state tax cut ‘ up to $1,000 per family ‘ on textbooks for families with children in college, after a study concluded that SUNY students spend, on average, $104 per class on textbooks.