SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK WATCH : A College Bookstore Comes Out of the Cellar

“I can just see it,” said a student wearing a University of Southern California Trojans T-shirt as he stepped through the security gates of the new campus bookstore. “Attention, Trojan shoppers!” he intoned solemnly. “On Level Three, a special on . . . ring binders !”

He wasn’t far off. The new USC bookstore has a distinct modern-department-store look. Opened for business July 17 on the main campus drag and inaugurated last week, it occupies 34,000 square feet in a new five-story building that cost the university $8.8 million in construction and installation. The retail operation takes up four floors, connected by central banks of escalators--not high on the list of things one expects to see in a bookstore. Sleek shelving is set not in the old-fashioned perpendicular way but diagonally to the aisles; marketing experts have discovered that this configuration draws the eye through the store and invites browsing.

The clearest trend in college bookstores, says Elizabeth Kennedy, marketing manager of the USC facility, is that “we’re moving out of the attitude that students have to shop here just because we’re here and we’re accessible. Universities didn’t use to invest much in college stores--they put them in the basement.”

College stores have come out of the cellar. In recent years, money has been poured into these operations. UC San Diego is dedicating its newly expanded store this week, and UC Irvine is constructing a larger bookstore, due to open in January as part of its new UCI Student Center. Since the surge in college enrollment during the 1970s, estimates Garis Distelhorst, executive director of the National Assn. of College Stores, as many as four out of five college stores have been “renovated, remodeled or rebuilt.”

The old USC store occupied only 8,300 square feet in the student commons. Although ranked only 10th nationally in total sales among college stores in 1988-89, it sold more per square foot than any other store--a statistical way of saying it was immensely crowded. The store was so small that at “rush” time--the beginning of a term, when students buy required course materials--one-third of all the general books were physically packed up and moved out to make space for texts. The new store is so spacious that students lining up for rush purchases are ushered neatly through a rope maze leading to the cash registers; in the old plan, no such open floor space was available, and customers just jammed the aisles.

With the variety of merchandise in the store, the role of textbooks, the backbone of the college store operation, has shifted. At USC, the merchandising strategy is to use texts--which students must buy here--to draw customers through the store. Texts are located on the top floor, so to find them, students must pass through the general book department on Level 2 (a below-ground-level department sells clothing and gifts and has a separate outside entrance), swing through professional books, computer equipment and office supplies on Level 3, and ride up to textbooks at the top. Along the way, arranged in clear plastic display cubes along the escalator banks, are “impulse items”--colorful calendars, office supplies, selected gift items--that managers hope will tempt customers to add a few dollars to their purchases.

An increased emphasis on general books accounts for some of the impulse to expand. Although they are the least profitable of the items sold in these stores, additional floor space and personnel is being devoted to a range of books from faculty publications to best sellers, and even children’s books.

“General books are among the slowest sellers, but on a campus, they are one of the most important areas for the academic mission of the store,” says Distelhorst. “Depending on the quality of the bookstore and selection, a general book department doesn’t have to be unprofitable, but there are other reasons for having a big department. It sets a tone.”

“It pays to have a great selection of books,” Kennedy agrees. “We’re finding that prospective new faculty visiting the campus will look at the library and the bookstore. It weighs in their decision to come to the school.”

USC Bookstores director Jack Arnold anticipates that when the bookstore hits its stride, there will be 80,000 titles in the general book department--representing a five-fold increase over the old inventory and comparing favorably with the figures at large general bookstores. Attention to small-press books and California authors is evident in the selection.

The bookstore’s relationship to the outside community is still unclear, however. According to Arnold, an edge-of-campus site for the new store was briefly considered, but rejected in favor of the central location. Parking is a major problem for visitors who might want to drop by to browse.

“It’s very unusual for a college bookstore to aggressively pursue business off-campus,” Distelhorst says. “The movement is rather in the opposite direction. Local businesses feel threatened” by the sense that college stores have tax advantages because of their institutional affiliations.

In one particularly high-profile case now before the California Supreme Court, two Marin County booksellers sued a national bookstore chain that managed a store under contract to a local college; they sought an injunction preventing the college store from selling non-required texts.

General book department manager Candace Moreno, on the other hand, takes a longer view. “Parking is a problem, but we’ll come up with something,” she says. “Downtown is moving in this direction. It may not be here for another decade or so, but you can feel it coming this way. We’re going to be in the heart of L.A. in the future.”

Parking instructions for visitors to the USC Bookstore: Be persistent and avoid days when football games are scheduled. Enter the campus through Gate 2, located on Figueroa Street just north of Exposition Boulevard. Tell the parking attendant you are headed for the bookstore; a number of metered parking spaces have been set aside for this purpose.