The Cabrillo bookstore closes for good on Friday, March 22.
After 65 years of supporting students and faculty, it will cease to exist, due in-large part to the lack of foot traffic and plummeting sales caused by COVID-19. Additionally, more online classes are being offered because of the pandemic, so physical textbooks aren’t as needed, said Bradley Olin, Cabrillo’s vice president of finance and administrative services.
“The traditional brick and mortar type operations of a lot of bookstores are struggling,” he said.
Finances are only one of the reasons the bookstore is closing.
The bookstore is an extension of Barnes & Noble College, which teams with college campuses to sell books. Cabrillo had a longstanding contract with Barnes & Noble College, and they wanted Cabrillo to transition to what is known as an equitable access program. If Cabrillo refused, they wouldn’t be able to maintain a business partnership, Olin said.
An equitable access program is an opt-out model of online course content delivery where bookstore providers essentially preload all of your course materials digitally for a lower fee. But Olin said this model is under scrutiny by the Department of Education, which is why Cabrillo decided not to move forward.
Bookstore manager Kelly Ringer declined to comment.
Dana Hagge, regional manager of Barnes & Noble College, did not reply to requests for comment.
While most students might not yet know about the bookstore closing, some students like Jared Keith, a 20-year-old psychology major, heard rumors about its closure from murmurings across campus.
Keith said he feels sad and frustrated about the bookstore closing, since he frequents it a lot.
“I feel like the bookstore is perfect for what’s there. It’s good to have a little store to buy things, so I don’t know what else they’d use the space for,” Keith said. “That’s where I get my school supplies and my books for school.”
Rest assured, even with the bookstore’s closure, students will not be left to fend for themselves when it comes to acquiring textbooks.
“At this point, we are transitioning to an online bookstore model, so the experience of buying books will be comparable to that of Amazon, except that you’ll be able to access the Cabrillo College online bookstore through our website and Canvas,” Olin said.
All the materials should be pre-loaded before the semester starts so students can get the needed materials before enrollment.
While students are losing its only on-campus bookstore, it will gain from not being forced into an unfit business model, Olin said.
“While we may lose some of the immediate on-demand convenience of having a physical bookstore, ultimately, it wasn’t sustainable for the college to keep that running at a considerable expense,” Olin said. “This is a good thing for the college. It’s a move in the right direction because what we’re finding with a lot of traditional business models that operated on college premises is that they don’t work in a post-pandemic era.”
While the bookstore closes on March 22, Cabrillo will open its online shop on April 2. Meanwhile, before the physical store closes, you can snag some Cabrillo merch for discounted prices.
