The first few weeks of the fall semester saw students struggling to acquire their textbooks due to changes in the bookstore’s supply chain.
The issues have affected numerous professors, delaying their classes and forcing them to pick up the slack for their students to succeed.
Dr. Erin Campbell is one such professor, who described how the effects of nearly one hundred of her students being unable to get their books exponentially increased her own workload.Â
“I’ve had to make copies of the textbook, turn them into PDFs, and post them to Georgia View for students that don’t have them,” she said, a process which gets much longer as more and more classes require it.
Her students’ assignments have also been impacted, as students couldn’t prepare properly for their daily quizzes without the accompanying texts.
Dr. Campbell expressed further concerns for students’ education experience in general, saying, “I understand there is a move towards eBooks … [but] students tend to learn better with a physical textbook in their hands; it helps them retain information better.”
She also learned from student and faculty feedback that there have been issues with ABAC’s new eBook system as well, leaving no good option.
“I’m not against eBooks,” she continued, “but I think access to books, whether print of electronic, needs to be guaranteed in the first couple of days of classes.”
Similar sentiments and experiences were shared by Mr. Shawn Seats, who placed an order for lab manuals back in April that had only arrived September 6.
The tremendous delay placed an excessive work burden on his students who had their first exam the week after their books finally arrived, effectively doubling or even tripling their workload through no fault of their own.
This is to say nothing of the work that was simply not doable the first few weeks, with Mr. Seats explaining, “There was essentially an entire week of assignments that was impossible to do.”
“If they had to wait two or three weeks for the books,” he added, “how could students possibly do what they need to do?”
His question has gone unanswered, as have those from students and faculty alike as to what they’re supposed to do or even how this issue became so exacerbated to begin with.
With the sciences being a department hit especially hard by the bookstore supply issues, the Stallion reached out to department head Dr. Jospeh Falcone for comment.
“It’s a combination of the manufacturers and publishers not always being compatible,” he explained, “and I think it’ll be easier next time once all the wrinkles are worked out.”
“I’m not a fan of the way things worked out,” he continued, “but I’m not at liberty to go into any detail.”
With that lack of detail perpetually hanging over the bookstore’s recent woes, students are left to ponder why exactly it took weeks for them to get the books they paid for.
