By Chris Urquia and Stephanie LaCour
Recently, there has been some inquiry from students as to the costs of textbooks. Let’s face it. It’s expensive.
However, with all that said, there’s information that all students need to know. This is the truth about the Bookaneer.
One of the questions that kept cropping up was, “Who owns the store?” According to Vice President of Administrative Services, Deborah Frazier, “The Bookaneer is owned by Peninsula College.”
The heart and brains of The Bookaneer is Camilla Rico, the store manager. In a series of interviews with the manager, Camilla discloses a great deal of information in regards to the Bookaneer’s financial report.
Whether you’re a presidential candidate campaigning for success or a quaint college bookstore in the Pacific Northwest, most people are going to ask a similar question: “Where is the money going?”
“The book store funds are part of the Admin Services Budget and not only cover all Bookstore overhead, but partially supports funding for Admin, services positions,” Rico said, “beyond operational expenses, the Bookstore has been asked at times to contribute additional funding to support projects. Some past examples of these include the PUB and bookstore remodel, gallery cameras, and food service kitchen upgrades.
“Students benefit from this support in the quality of facilities and services that the College provides for teaching and learning and student success.”
According to the data collected by National Association of College Stores, there is a certain amount of cents per dollar that go to cover the costs of buying, shipping, and distributing textbooks, and within that average is also the costs of running a store on campus.
When running a store on campus, the administrators need to take into account textbook wholesale costs, freight expense, and the salaries of college store personnel, the stores income and its operations.
There are many aspects of the business that you need to consider. It’s complicated, but it doesn’t need to be as complicated as it looks.
With all the various financial aspects to cover, you might be inclined to ask, “But are the prices fair?” Well, after Peninsula College purchases the textbooks, there is a standard markup price that is set for all textbooks. So, the prices get marked up, and students end up paying a fairly large sum of money per quarter.
However, purchasing a textbook brand new isn’t the only option available. The Bookaneer also offers a large selection of used textbooks at lower prices.
Students can purchase a textbook used, but they can also rent a textbook for a lower price. There is also a price comparison tool on the website so students can decide where the best deals are.
The Bookaneer also offers The Plunder Program. The bookstore purchases used textbooks for as low of a price as possible, and then sell them back to students for the lowest possible price.
In the fall quarter, The Plunder Program offered reduced prices on 146 titles and sold more than 1,060 copies at reduced prices. That means that 74% of our textbooks were discounted. With an average discount of 54 percent on each title.
Total Plunder Savings for Fall Quarter: $58,606.51
Accumulated savings: $700,737.