Putting the 'Books' in Bookstore

The Haverford College Bookstore in Haverford, Pennsylvania, is a 6,000-square-foot independent offering a "hand-selected inventory of reading that runs wide and deep," as well as textbooks and pretty much anything else a student needs to get through a semester. This article, which originally appeared in Founders Green, the college's parents' newsletter, takes a look at how the store successfully competes with larger stores by meeting the needs of the college community and beyond.

This is not Mom and Dad's college bookstore.

Take a moment and recall the college bookstores of our youth. They sold textbooks, notebooks, pens, typewriter ribbons, and sweatshirts with the college name on them. Period. Do we remember these institutions fondly? No. They were simply there: utilitarian, spare, necessary.

Now come visit the Haverford College Bookstore, located in the Whitehead Campus Center, and see what time, energy, and dedication have done to the college bookstore. First of all, it's a true book shop, a real, honest-to-goodness 6,000-square-foot independent store with a carefully, lovingly hand-selected inventory of reading that runs wide and deep, and includes a special section devoted to works by Haverford alums and faculty members where you can discover, with deep pleasure, that Frank Conroy, author of Stop-Time, went to Haverford. The combined efforts of Julie Summerfield, Grace Butts, Mary DiLullo, Frank Gainor, Terry Griffiths, and the seven or eight students hired to help out part-time have gone a long way to create a very special retail environment that appeals to the College's students, its faculty and administration, as well as members of the extended community who might wander their way. "We compete with larger stores by knowing our customers better and anticipating what they want," Bookstore Manager Summerfield says. And they compete exceedingly well. The shop is part of a bookseller's group known as Book Sense, an independent store consortium that honors the rubric "Independent Bookstores for Independent Minds." The Haverford College Bookstore is indeed a genuine reader's paradise, one of those places run by people who love books for people who love books. Sadly, there aren't many like it remaining, especially on college campuses.

The Bookstore's offerings extend into areas that our old familiar college stores never dreamed of entering. They've got music (including CDs by Haverford's own a cappella groups); they've got DVDs; they've got computer games. And they've got pretty much what any student might need to get through a semester without setting foot off campus. This includes chips and dip, floss and toothpaste, tissues and Tylenol, plus a selection of greeting cards for any and all occasions, enough to satisfy Moms, Dads, grandparents, relatives, and friends for at least four years of a student's tenure on campus. Naturally, there's an ample selection of Haverfordiana as well, all that stuff emblazoned with the school's name and logo. And the black squirrel stuffed animals come in two sizes!

The store's most serious purpose is also carried out with special flair, and that is providing those textbooks we remember so fondly from our own college days. Like all Haverford institutions, the Bookstore cares about its community, and there is no community more special than those incoming students (especially freshmen) who line up to purchase their armloads of educational matter. To ease the tension of this immersion into the reality of college (as well as the tedium of standing in line), the Bookstore makes a practice of handing out candy to those waiting to check out, a practice that certainly helps sweeten the start of the new school year. Parents might be pleasantly surprised to learn that the Bookstore's textbook prices compare quite favorably to the major online sources for books.

Beyond those tasks of providing texts, stocking and maintaining the contents of a good-sized mainstream independent store, and covering areas of urgent student need (the snacks and incidentals that make dorm life homier), the Bookstore provides its own special touches to the intellectual community that is Haverford. The shop puts a table outside its doors with inviting book displays keyed into any number of holidays, celebrations, and campus activities. And the store also has strong ties to the larger community it serves. This past June, for example, patrons were given the option to donate their 20 percent discount on the new Harry Potter novel to an Ardmore literacy program.

Perhaps that is why, if you ask your Haverford student about the college bookstore, you'll be given a big grin. They love the place. They'll tell you about the great titles, and the browsing, and the wonderful people who answer their pleas for help with that book they must have right away, the lovely people who help them find the right cartridge for their printer, and who cheerfully take care of their tiniest purchases. Oh, and did you know there's a bookstore cat? That's Codi, just one more reason why the Haverford College Bookstore is so ineffably ... Haverford.