With the arrival of the spring semester Princeton students will, for the first time, look to Labyrinth Books to supply their textbooks. By bringing Labyrinth to Princeton, the administration realized its goal of placing a prestigious, academic bookseller on Nassau Street. While the merits of this goal are understandable, the University must not lose sight of the fact that the top priorities of students in purchasing textbooks are affordability and flexibility. The University and Labyrinth should move decisively to assuage fears that the Labyrinth era will be both more expensive and less convenient than the system it replaced.
The University should require faculty members to post the ISBN codes of all course books online and on course syllabi. When provided with this information, students can easily comparison shop on the internet and ensure that the books they purchase are the right ones. Since Labyrinth sells new books, the University should work to organize an online book swap that will allow students to efficiently trade used books. Perhaps this could involve the creation of a searchable, centralized forum on the USG website where students could buy and sell used books by ISBN.
Though Labyrinth is an independent, private company, there are several steps it could take to increase profit and make devoted costumers out of students. It has already taken such a step by deciding to accept charges to proxes. The store's present plan is for textbooks to be stored in the basement and brought up by employees after students hand them a form listing their course numbers. The intent is clear: To place a pile of books in a student's hands so he or she feels compelled to purchase all of them at once. The prices may be good, but the ethos is not. By installing tables and chairs where students can sit and review books and decide whether to purchase them, the store will create a better, less high-pressured shopping experience and make up for the fact that space concerns preclude full shelving of all books in the upstairs area. Princeton's newest bookseller ought to aspire to ensure that no student is lost in the Labyrinth.
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