Sourcebook Info Available Online

In an attempt to relieve the heavy traffic that clogs the halls of the Science Center basement at the beginning of each semester, Harvard Printing and Publications Services (HPPS) has developed a new method of sourcebook distribution.

Students can now check the status of their coursepacks online at the HPPS website—www.hpps.harvard.edu.

HPPS Production Coordinator Kenton W. Doyle said he thinks the website has led to smaller lines at the HPPS Science Center depot.

“With the onslaught of what we like to call the tsunami season, there are things that are going to happen, but I think that overall the students have been much more pleased this semester,” Doyle said.

Though this service was available during the fall semester, it has been revamped so that the website is updated roughly every hour and a half—or whenever the status of a coursepack changes—according to Doyle.

Doyle said HPPS has tried to promote the new system through signs placed in the Science Center and by telling students who call that they can check the website for the status of their sourcebooks.

Some students are grateful to be spared the effort of trekking to the Science Center and standing in line only to find their source books out of stock.

Louise S. Chim ’05 said she got her source book after checking its for it on the website.

“A lot of times people line up and then they realize their coursepack isn’t in, and [that] it was a waste time,” Chim said.

But not all students have been won over by the new system.

Some complained that they miss the system where they could place orders on books out of stock and be notified by phone when the books came in.

And the system isn’t flawless.

Some students learned that the hard way when they ventured to the Science Center after the website indicated that their coursepack was in, only to find that it had sold out moments earlier.

Doyle says that system errors have been the exception, however.

“We’ve had complaints, but the complaints have been far fewer this semester than in semesters past, so I think that’s indicative of the system working pretty well,” Doyle said.

The COOP still employs the reordering system because it contracts out for books instead of producing them on-site, according to Jeremiah P. Murphy ’73, president of the Harvard Cooperative Society Board of Directors.

“We order the packs based on student requests, so we email the students when the inventory comes in,” Murphy said. “We see it as a matter of customer satisfaction.”

—David H. Gellis and Lauren R. Dorgan contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.