Daily Hansan
kansas union BOOKSTORE
PAPERBACK EDITION
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 1964
NUMBER
Bookstore Opens in Watson
PAPERBACKS, ANYONE? - The paperback book craze has hit Watson Library. With the cooperation of the Kansas Union Book Store, a small paperback bookstore will be opened in
Watson Library at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26. The 1,500 volumes will supplement student textbooks, and the paperbacks already are available in the Kansas Union Book Store.
By Leta Cathcart
Paperback books, once reserved for lurid mass consumption, have now invaded Watson Library in the form of scholarly books on everything from physics to philosophy.
James Stoner, manager of the Union Book Store, said the opening of the auxiliary bookstore in Watson will be at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, March 26.
The bookstore in the library, as yet without a name, is scheduled to be open Sunday through Friday. 1:30 to 5 p.m., and from 6:30 to 10 p.m. Stoner said these hours are subject to change as convenient times for the students can be determined.
TWO-THIRDS OF THE BOOKS stocked in the library bookstore will not be available in the Union Book Store, Stoner said. The paperback books in the library store are all university press editions. They include Minnesota Press, Cambridge, Chicago and Notre Dame Press editions.
The new store will house 1.500 volumes which deal with, among other things, business, history, literature, religion, mathematics and psychology.
Stoner said the new bookstore will help reduce the pressure on the library. He said many students request paperbacks at Watson, but that the library has not stocked them up to now.
THE BOOKSTORE IN WATSON is intended to supplement the textbooks and library books already available. The College Outline Series, books on almost any conceivable academic subject, also will be sold in the new bookstore.
A few racks of school supplies will be available—pencils, paper, flash cards and foreign language verb wheels. However, the bulk of the space in the new bookstore will be devoted to paperback books.
A feature of the new bookstore is the series of pamphlets of literary criticism of American authors, published by the University of Minnesota Press.
STONER SAID THE UNION bookstore was asked to expand its services to Watson Library so
that some of the pressure would be taken off the present library facilities.
The new store is located in the new part of the undergraduate level of the library, just beyond the periodicals room.
This is the first time since August 1961 that the Union bookstore has expanded. At that time, the lower level of the bookstore was opened and became overrun with racks of paperback books.
The paperback book craze began at KU in 1853 with one shelf and 36 titles. It now has expanded to include 700 feet of shelf space and 7,600 titles, on the lower level of the Kansas Union.
THE PAPERBACK CRAZE hit America in the early 1950s, Stoner said. At that time, most of the books offered were murder mysteries, westerns and lurid novels. Now a great quantity of the 26,000 titles available in paperback editions deal with academic subjects. Stoner also said the colleges are partly responsible for this trend.
Stoner said he thought college students were largely responsible for the ready acceptance of paperbacks. He offered finances as a reason why college students are such a lucrative market for the relatively inexpensive paperbacks.
At the time the Union Book Store first started selling paperbacks, it was able to offer 35 per cent of all the paperback titles in print. Stoner said now it is able to offer only 25 per cent of available titles, with the same number of titles offered in the Book Store.
THE CATALOGUE of paperback books was the size of the KU student Directory. It now looks more like a middle-sized phone book.
Stoner are said approximately 28,000 books are sold during a fiscal year in the Union Book Store. Most of these books are concerned with the students' classes and cannot be classed as "light reading."
Stoner attributed this fact to the hours the Union Book Store is open. Since it is open only during school hours, the students may be too occupied with their studies to be interested in the latest light novel.
STONER ALSO ATTRIBUTED the popularity of the paperbacks to the fact that a wider range of material could be kept available for the student. Although the production price for a paperback is only 25 cents less than for a hardback, the paperbacks are cheaper
and easier to carry around. Many students supplement their regular textbooks with paperbacks.
Curled edges and loose pages probably will prevent the paperback books from being used as regular textbooks. A paperback's life span depends on the amount of tender loving care its owner gives it.
By the end of a semester, most of them look as if they had gone through a few floods, at least five civil wars, and assorted tornadoes.
A significant development in the paperback situation has been the movement of many publishers into the paperback field. Books which sold in expensive hardback editions now are being used in classes, and appear on library shelves.
FAMILIAR-AND NOT-SO-FAMiliar—classics have been added to paperback lines that once concentrated on James Hilton, Thorne Smith and Erle Stanley Gardner. Practically all the works of such American novelists as Mark Twain, Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne have become available.
Titles by Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Flaubert, Zola and Dumas have begun to compete with each other. Students assigned to read such books in their literature classes now have several volumes to choose among, though certain translations are in higher academic favor than others.
Histories and biographies are in wide popularity. A work like Henry Adams's "Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres," once restrict to expensive, scholarly looking editions, is one example: it is available from at least two paperback publishers.
THE STUDENT WHO once longed to have a copy of Dos Passos' "U.S.A." but hated to pay the hardback price now can get a copy of this famous work in paperback. Contemporary novels move these days to the paperback lists in a matter of months.
Another important feature of the paperback revolution is the volumes from university presses, which will be found in the new bookstore in the library. Such editions are among the most de luxe and favored of paperbacks now coming to stores like those on the KU campus.
Surge of Students to Affect Textbook Situation
By Russell L. Reynolds Executive Editor The College Store Journal
Managers of College stores and faculties of colleges and universities are going to have to change their habits of ordering books in the future.
When the real flood of students begins to inundate the campuses starting next fall, no publisher is going to be able physically to ship the needed texts in the months of August and early September.
The problem that one prominent publisher had this fall is merely a prelude to what inevitably is going to happen to every major publisher. The hole at the end of their processing and shipping funnel just will not accommodate the tremendous flood of orders. Publishers have been making and will continue to make every effort to supply the books since it means profit to them to do so, wise managers and faculties will not expect shipments of major quantities in 30 or 40 days.
THE SMART COLLEGE STORE manager will be ordering texts three and four months ahead.
Even though the publisher is able to ship enough books in such a short time, stores delaying their orders are going to be victims of out-of-stock situations. With the expected tremendous enrollments no publisher will be able to anticipate the demands for a particular book.
It takes from six to eight weeks to get a book reprinted. So the stores placing orders even sixty days ahead of classes run a considerable risk of being without the books when they are needed for study sessions.
Many major schools report that their information generally is only fifty per cent complete one month before sessions begin. Therefore, faculty will have to be warned that they will not have the books on hand at the beginning of school unless they choose their texts ninety days or more in advance of the date of book needs.
THE REAL PROBLEM is just how to get the message across to the faculty themselves.
NACS has heard the story of a neighboring manager who had only seventy per cent of his books on hand at the start of the current
academic year. This led the local newspaper to feature a big account of the shortage of books. Other managers in the area reported that their administrations were concerned about the situation.
THE LESSON FOR US is quite simple.
Next spring every available medium reaching college faculty should be used to warn about the coming shortage of textbooks. Publishers should carry this message to the faculty with their representatives. Stories also should be placed in student newspapers.
Certainly their requisitions for books should carry this message .minimum order time for texts is sixty to ninety days. They can protect themselves by placing orders with each publisher as they are received rather than accumulating them.
ORDERS FOR SINGLE TEXTS are processed through a warehouse much faster than orders for several titles amounting to hundreds of books. This technique also will get more prompt notice of out-of-stock situations.
Now, let me pass along to you
a little advice which might prevent vour having ulcers too soon.
It is easy to feel that the publisher is bungling intentionally and that he is taking personal advantage of you. Without accepting the blame yourself, you can report that you placed the order, know the date, realize that the book has not arrived and express your belief that the publisher surely is flooded with orders but is making every effort to fill them.
When a book fails to arrive we all know that the manager is on the firing line facing hundreds of disappointed students and irate faculty.
PUBLISHERS DO NOT announce new books or new editions with the expectation of not delivering on time. It is only human to be a little optimistic about delivery dates.
Certainly no publisher willfully ships the wrong book, does not ship at all, or fails to report on inquiries.
Most delays in publishing a book are not on the doorstep of the publisher. They are right in the lap of the faculty writer who does not deliver on time . . . but oddly enough expects the publisher to.
There is no intention here of whitewashing the publishers who do not communicate. Many of them simply fail to recognize that every book not shipped represents a minor disaster for a student somewhere.
Communication back to the customer on non-shipment of books is one of the principal problems of business.
THE MOST IRRITATING single thing a publisher can do is fail to answer various communications about books which have not arrived in the College Store.
The best advice for publisher personnel is this . . . do not promise anything when you do not expect to deliver. There is entirely too much promising "to call back" . . . "to wire back" . . . "to ship today" . . . and the like.
There is no use filling the air with repriminations about publisher inefficiencies and inadequacies.
Let's not be quiet about failures to produce, but let's remember that we are in this together and we have a common job to do . . . that of providing tools for college education.