Word: coops
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sept. 24, the Coop knew it had guessed wrong in every course where texts had been sold out. But it still did not know how wrong. The Registrars' office, which compiled its final list of course enrollments in October, would not give the Coop any preliminary figures. A text re-order was occasionally held up while a Coop secretary tried to contact professors for the enrollment in their courses -- but they often could not be reached...
...result was that many students, such as a large number in Soc Sci 8, were left without books for more than half a term. The Coop ordered 350 copies of several Soc Sci 8 texts in the summer -- about the number that were bought the year before. But the year before there had been a limit on course enrollment; last Fall, without a limit, enrollment soared to 549. The Coop didn't know when it made its first re-order, nor its second. It found out in time for the third...
There was no one to rescue the Coop from this kind of mistake -- not even a publisher. "We used to be able to tell the publishers we had a special problem, ask for a book to be shipped in a week or ten days and get it," Morrill said. "But too many firms were merging and moving away from our area. It wasn't so easy anymore...
...Coop add to the delay after books arrived from the publisher? Only slightly, Coop officials argue -- their triplicate filing system sometimes slowed down transfer of books from packages to shelves, but was efficient in the long run. And, if students didn't complain about a sold-out book, then the clerks didn't always notice it immediately, delaying its re-order. But the clerks, Coop officials insist, were and are as good as the staff of any Boston department store; what may have looked like "chaos" in the annex was the necessary moving of books...
...Coop officials also permitted students from Boston College, Boston University and other schools to come to the Coop for texts their own bookstores didn't have. "We expected them and counted them in when we ordered," Morrill explained. "They weren't stealing Harvard books, and they were paying for the privilege of shopping here, since they didn't earn patronage refunds...