College bookstores are changing dramatically in the digital era

College bookstores, once bustling hubs filled with students perusing aisles and loading up on textbooks and supplies, are no longer filled with stacks of books and students shopping at some institutions.

Bookstores are reinventing themselves as more students prefer to shop online, and more colleges and universities outsource services once provided in-house.

Over the past decade, more schools, including the University of St. Thomas, which just made the switch last month, have hired outside vendors to manage the entire store or just the sales of textbooks and course materials, which are often done online now.

And professors are gradually transitioning toward using more digital materials, including e-books instead of paper textbooks, since today’s generation of college students has grown up accustomed to reading on a screen.

“Bookstore operations on college campuses have changed significantly over the years and become more complicated,” said Mark Vangsgard, chief financial officer at St. Thomas. “It’s harder for individual, smaller schools to do that internally.”

St. Thomas started working with Barnes & Noble College in January, outsourcing the purchase of course materials. Students buy all items online. Course materials are packaged individually for students, who pick them up at the store. The store is still independently run and continues to sell school supplies along with branded items, such as sweatshirts and mugs.

“[The store is] not intended to have a bookstore in it,” Vangsgard said. “This isn’t the ‘70s, ’80s or ’90s.”

Vangsgard said he believes St. Thomas is among the last metro-area private college bookstores to start using an outside vendor in some way. Officials said some colleges make the move for financial reasons — their bookstore is losing money — while others are looking for a way to make buying costly course materials more affordable for students.

In a survey of 45 public and private institutions in Minnesota, 17 either outsourced the whole store or just sales of materials. Barnes & Noble College has the largest market share of those surveyed; the company’s website says it works with 18 schools in the state.

All of the bookstores at two-year colleges in the Minnesota State network are independently run. Eight of them buy all course materials together as a consortium.

Barnes & Noble did not respond to a request for an interview.

Plenty of Minnesota institutions still run independent bookstores.

The University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus bookstore is independent — one of about 300 in the country — and also orders all its materials in-house, said Neil Olness, director of bookstores for most of the U system. The Rochester, Crookston and Morris campuses are also independent but part of the U system.

At those stores, professors can choose physical or digital textbooks for their classes.

“As the campus store, we didn’t feel that it was our place to tell instructors, tell students how they should learn,” Olness said.

The percentage of digital materials students buy varies by campus, but overall 70% are digital and 30% are physical books, he said.

Percentages at other colleges vary widely. Digital resources are used 7% of the time at Macalester College, but that number is 80% at Concordia College.

Olness said the U’s bookstore isn’t there to make a profit but to serve students, selling course materials at cost. It also holds special events, such as a gathering where students can buy diploma frames and sample treats for graduation parties.

Olness said that between five and 10 years ago, more campus bookstores began leasing out their operations to larger companies. But over the past three years, some have shifted back to being independent, he said.

“I don’t think the universities are seeing the return from the leased operations, and then the universities also value ... that service aspect of the campus store,” he said.

Independent bookstores have banded together recently to increase buying power so they have the same advantages of a large national company, he said.

At Minnesota State, a similar effort has been underway for seven years. The consortium of eight two-year colleges is saving money for their students and bookstores by having an in-house team of buyers purchase materials for all of them, said Gary Westerland, director of Minnesota State’s bookstore collaboration.

The buyers look for free or low-cost digital resources or digital versions that are cheaper than print, he said, saving students millions of dollars.

“It’s a pretty unique program that doesn’t really exist anywhere. We crafted it,” Westerland said, adding that he’s received inquiries about the collaboration from across the country.

Some college bookstores run by vendors still look like the campus bookstores people remember from decades ago. At Macalester College and Metropolitan State University, part of the Minnesota State system, textbooks on subjects ranging from Latin to history line the shelves. The usual sweatshirts, mugs and school supplies are there, too. Barnes & Noble runs both.

Among college officials and staff, opinions vary as to how well outsourcing to larger companies works.

It is easier to order and distribute books as students' orders have become more complex between renting or buying books, purchasing used books or getting digital materials, Vangsgard said. As the institution grows, more students mean more materials to manage.

At St. Thomas, 87% of students bought their materials online, Vangsgard said, and nearly 70% of the materials were digital. A national vendor has a broader reach and can find materials that bookstore staff can’t, he said.

“That’s really kind of a win-win for everybody,” he said.

It follows the outsourcing trend in higher education in areas like dining services, Vangsgard said.

Store employees said the change will allow them to focus more on customers and student workers will no longer have to come in on weekends to stock books.

At Concordia College in Moorhead, officials moved to eCampus, a company that finds the least expensive option for each item, such as an online resource instead of a hard copy book, in 2023 to save students money. All students pay the same fee for materials no matter what; this spring, that amount was $350. The store is still independently run.

“We started seeing a change in course materials and noticing the expense was just growing considerably for our students,” said PJ Hines, Concordia College’s director of bookstore operations.

Students can opt out of the program if they find $350 is more expensive than what their materials would cost if purchased another way, or if they are student-teaching or studying abroad.

The program doesn’t save the college money. The stores' clothing and gifts side does make a profit, unlike the books side.

Westerland, who runs the Minnesota State consortium, said he believes something is lost when schools start working with a national vendor.

“Part of it is really ... having your focus on your students, as opposed to profit,” he said.

Westerland said that because his book buying staff is “on the ground,” they can respond better to student needs and work more with faculty, selling materials written by professors at individual schools.

“The bookstore industry is changing dramatically,” he said. “All of the efforts that we do are really focused on student success and student affordability, and that is our main bottom line.”