The Coop's Textbooks

The noticeable lack of textbooks at the Coop last fall had one good result: the Coop is more concerned now than ever before with getting textbooks on its shelves at the beginning of each term and keeping them in stock.

Coop officials admit that preventing large textbook shortages in the past was mostly a matter of luck. By calling publishers at the last minute, they were often able to speed up the delivery of books -- a process that normally takes a few weeks -- to a few days. But last fall, when many publishers changed their procedures, the Coop's luck ran out.

Increasing centralization and the pressure of larger orders now prevent most publishers from supplying retailers on an emergency basis. Before next semester, the Coop wants to adjust to the change -- but it will need more support from within the University. It will certainly need more co-operation from the large number of professors who send their reading lists to the Coop less than two weeks before registration and from those who send them incomplete but never bother to notify the Coop of additions. It must be able to obtain course enrollment figures soon after each term begins, so that it can order the correct number of books for courses which turn out to be larger than it predicted. The Registrar's new policy of not disclosing these figures should be reversed.

But the Coop cannot expect the Faculty or the Registrar or students to come up with answers to its problems spontaneously or observe its deadlines automatically. And it cannot rely on its better record this term: professors are always easier to reach during the winter and there are always full courses whose second term enrollment is known in advance.

The suggestion that a joint committee of Faculty members and Coop officials be set up to improve cooperation is a good one -- but the Coop will have to provide the initiative. It has made a sensible proposal for a single form on which it, the undergraduate libraries and other Square bookstores would ask professors for advance reading lists -- but it will have to do most of the planning. It should receive course enrollment lists every term -- but it will have to take part in the persuading.

Measures like these, Coop officials say, are all that is needed to put textbooks on the shelves when students need them. They can prove that by getting some of the measures adopted between now and September and letting students see the results.