Last week, Labyrinth Books’ first semester as Princeton’s primary textbook provider began. While Labyrinth continues to experiment with how it sells course material, all interested parties are encouraged to engage in a dialogue with Labyrinth and its student advisory committee. Unlike the U-Store, whose bookselling operation was cooperative and ran at an annual loss, Labyrinth has a vested interest in working with its customers and in participating in respectful discourse.
Students were particularly concerned last week by the seemingly pointless lines for textbooks. Instead of displaying books on shelves grouped by department as they were in the U-Store, books are now kept in a back section of the basement accessible primarily to employees. While students may ask to examine these shelves themselves or scout among the retail books upstairs for the necessary titles, the current layout does not facilitate such browsing. With no price tags on the covers of books, long lines forming behind you, and the attendant who has just fetched the books staring, the impulse is to get the books and get out. Finally, having lost the price matching offered by the U-Store, students carry their books upstairs to learn how many hundreds of dollars they will be expected to pay. This does not make for a fun experience.
As Labyrinth begins to organize its copious basement space, students should remember that they can be a part of the planning process. Labyrinth hopes to use its basement to expand its holdings in used and foreign-language books and to host author events. While these are excellent ideas, neither necessarily precludes expanding the textbook section twice a year at the beginning of each semester to facilitate browsing. Labyrinth has expressed the hope that students will not view the desk in front of the stacks as a wall, but the truth is that students probably will see it that way no matter what. Our university culture is fundamentally different from others’, and Princeton students enjoy an open, hands-on approach to everything. This is nowhere more true than in our libraries, where the phrase closed-shelf is anathema. It was once anathema in our bookstore too.
Students vote not only with their voices, but also with their wallets. While the University has given Labyrinth Books a monopoly on textbooks, there are always internet stores and library reserves. Princeton needs a strong bookstore but not one that is unprepared to grow with its community of shoppers. We are confident that Labyrinth is not such a store, and hope that students and booksellers can move forward together to address these concerns to mutual satisfaction.
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