"I know very few, if any, of my friends go to the Coop and buy clothes, so I don't think that would be much of a loss," said Ethan C. Korngold '97.
But one student lamented the new management, "The While But he said the store will stock more used books from Barnes and Noble's textbook exchange, which is the largest such used book consortium in the country. This network of used books is just one example of the economies of scale offered by contracting with Barnes and Noble, Murphy said. "There are going to be a lot more (used texts)," said Frank, Barnes and Noble's college store division head. "We will be doing buy-back year round." Until now, the Coop has offered only limited buy-back periods. Although selection in the trade and textbook sections of the Coop may improve, some booksellers said centralization of book purchasing could lead to fewer choices in the long run. "When you have a concentration of decision-making and buying power in a few hands rather than many hands, it leads to an overall lack of diversity in what gets published," said Carole Horne, the head book buyer for Harvard Bookstore and the president of the New England Booksellers Association. Murphy said he could not yet say whether the management takeover would result in layoffs, but said that he wanted to minimize firing and move employees between departments to preserve jobs. Whatever the impact of increased centralization, Murphy's vision of building a world-class bookstore takes money. Neither Frank nor Murphy would specify the exact nature of the agreement between the Coop and Barnes and Noble, Murphy said the Coop and the store manager will split profits on a percentage basis, but he would not say what that split will be. Whatever the profit breakdown, Murphy said Barnes and Noble will acquire management of a $50 million dollar business with high prestige. "There's a lot of hidden leverage in this thing," Murphy said, explaining that Barnes and Noble has an incentive to succeed at such high profile schools as Harvard and MIT, which also has a Coop store. In recent years the company has taken over campus stores at Boston University and William and Mary. "I think most people have been fairly satisfied and haven't noticed in a bad way that anything has changed," said a customer service representative at Boston University's bookstore, which was taken over by Barnes and Noble in 1994. The Boston University store is currently undergoing major renovations, including the installation of a cafe, Frank said. At William and Mary, Michael Hadley, editor of the Flat Hat student paper, said reactions to Barnes and Nobles' changes have been "fairly positive." "The main floor is a lot more like what you would find in a private bookstore," he said of the renovated campus store. Read more in News
