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BARNES & NOBLE’S CAMPUS STORES OPEN DOORS TO PUBLIC

Many of the roughly 500 on-campus bookstores operated by Barnes & Noble College Booksellers (a sister company to Barnes & Noble) are tucked away in academic buildings far from public view. Now some are descending from the Ivory Tower.

Since 1968, colleges and universities across the country have hired the Basking Ridge, N.J.-based company to run their textbook operations. They have done this not to take advantage of the Barnes & Noble brand or comfy in-store atmosphere, but to leverage its expertise and economies of scale.

In recent years, however, some urban universities are breaking with tradition; they are erasing the distinction between campus bookstores and the traditional Barnes & Noble stores in an effort to reach out to the surrounding communities and expand their retail offerings.

Boston University; Georgia Tech; Harvard University; The University of Nevada, Las Vegas; The University of Pennsylvania and others now offer expanded campus bookstores open to the public. These resemble the large-format Barnes & Noble stores familiar to most shoppers, says Stan Frank, director of marketing and administration at Barnes & Noble College Booksellers.

“We’re crafting these stores along the lines of our sister company’s superstores,” Frank said. “In fact, we often use some of the same in-store designers and buy many of the fixtures from the same vendors.”

The result is a campus bookstore with an inviting atmosphere that appeals to cramming undergraduates, retired professors and daytime workers alike. Frank says universities have been ecstatic about what he calls the “academic superstore” format.

“We’ve increased sales, and since we pay most of these schools a commission — a percentage of our overall sales — their commissions are growing,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation for the schools.”

— JG